Strays/ferals I feed everyday SUDDENLY missing. Advice please !

I have wet and dry food I place in my yard for the last several years.

There have been a revolving door of faces over that time.

My one good neighbor and I have gotten a lot TNRd.

Several months ago new cats showed up suddenly.

They turned out to be housecats whom the relatives of a recently deceased elderly neighbor cruelly tossed out onto the streets so they could quickly sell her house. During the Dead of Winter.

Anyway, there have been a minimum of 5-6 cats I see every day in the yard. A total of 20 or so overall.

No one else ie regularly feeding them. Im out of place in this neighborhood as its all recent immigrants who dont speak to anyone and mainly are concerned with keeping their lawns super short. Next door neighbor is an old cat hater.

Anyway it's now been 3 days and plates of food are now sitting outside rotting.

It's this a very scary, bad sign ?

We have a swim club, seniors care facility and school within 1000 feet. I am worried someone did something awful rounding up the cats.

Any insights ?

I work from home, so I have been outside quite a bit. But no signs of any kittehs.

Oh gosh, do you think maybe animal control was called by one of your neighbors? It is possible that "the old cat hater" did something. I sure hope not. You could call your animal shelter and ask if there have been any kitties picked up by AC lately on your street and go see if they are there.

I had to call them when a few of mine went missing. This was years ago. I found out later that AC had been called and several caught and sadly euthanized. It was one of the worst phone calls I ever had to make. I hope this didn't happen to your kitties.

Ginny said:

Oh gosh, do you think maybe animal control was called by one of your neighbors? It is possible that "the old cat hater" did something. I sure hope not. You could call your animal shelter and ask if there have been any kitties picked up by AC lately on your street and go see if they are there.

I had to call them when a few of mine went missing. This was years ago. I found out later that AC had been called and several caught and sadly euthanized. It was one of the worst phone calls I ever had to make. I hope this didn't happen to your kitties.

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Ugh, that's so sad.

I honestly don't know if I could handle finding that out.

But I'm at a loss right now. Nothing huge has changed as far as I can see to change the cats' patterns overnight.

I have a big deck and a lot of things that the cats hang out on. Also have a couple fat possums wandering around who like to eat whatever the cats don't (the cats always eat everything 99.9 % of the time, so its rare to have leftovers at night) But the food wasnt touched for last few days.

Thanks for your input.

Do you know where they hang out when they aren't with you? You could go take a walk around the neighborhood too see what you could find. It's weird that the possums haven't even been by to eat.

It's quite possible that the cat hating neighbor poisoned the food the previous night, and that would explain why there are no possums around either..  People should always be careful when there are known cat haters around and feed in a hidden or preferably fenced area.  If you haven't thrown out the leftover food from last night, you might see if you could get it tested for something simple and deadly, although the cats and possums have not eaten THIS food.  If I found this out, I would be very tempted to call the authorities and have them search the neighbors house and garage for the poison. 

Red Top Rescue said:

 
It's quite possible that the cat hating neighbor poisoned the food the previous night, and that would explain why there are no possums around either..  People should always be careful when there are known cat haters around and feed in a hidden or preferably fenced area.  If you haven't thrown out the leftover food from last night, you might see if you could get it tested for something simple and deadly, although the cats and possums have not eaten THIS food.  If I found this out, I would be very tempted to call the authorities and have them search the neighbors house and garage for the poison. 

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Thankfully, I can rule that out as I can see her yard and she would have to be a ninja to get in this yard. Plus I have motion detector lights. The swim club is what concerns me the most. Because the kittehs would hang out there off season.(it backs up to Tributary Trails, so there is a lot of wildlife living around here)

I've reached out the Alley Cat Allies to see if they were doing a big round of TNR here, but haven't heard back yet.  Fingers crossed it's nothing nefarious going on and I'm just being a nervous nelly.

Any news?