Feral and ringworm

Soooo....

I seem to be dealing with more and more ringworm possibilities these days. Anyway, I've got a colony about 3 miles from me that's been prolific in breeding this year (9-10 new kittens) and my fosters are all full, full, full and refusing new cats. It's still my plan to catch the females and convince the homeowners to hold them post-op, but now, one female is showing up with sores.

UGH.

Now, here's the catch: the homeowner will probably take her for the post-op, but there's no way he's going to cooperate with me trapping the colony if the vet will put the cat down. She's definitely wild, but she's friendly enough with him.

So now I'm a bit stuck:
- Trap her and run the risk that the vet won't want to release her with ringworm. The homeowner will definitely bail if she gets put down.
- Leave her and allow her to infect the colony (they've probably already got it)
- Take her in and possibly contaminate our only remaining storage area -- the homeowner's heated workshop -- which we need for post-op'ing the others.

Suggestions?

Call the vet, and ask if they will put her down for ringworm. That sounds outrageous. And how long do you allow for recuperation? We just let our ferals go the next day! Maybe if you shorten the recuperation period, it won't be such a big deal to house them.

For the males, we allow a few days. For females, we give them two weeks, since we've had a female who has had post-spay complications.

My partner (who makes our vet appointments) told me that the vet won't put the cat down by default, though I'm sure they'll want to know that we're doing the responsible thing by arranging treatment. So it looks like the homeowner will have to hold her for the time she's getting medicated.

I can't believe anyone would make a big deal out of possible ringworm. It goes away in a month or two with or without treatment.

Given the prolific breeding, it is really important that these guys are s/n ASAP. As long as someone can monitor the cats after release, it is totally fine to let males go 24 hours after surgery and females after 36-48 hours (48-72 if pregnant). I would consider the stress for a cat to be caged for 2 weeks to be disproportional to the risk of releasing her earlier so I rarely hold anyone longer than 72 hours unless there is a sign that something is not right. Complications from spay are rare but problems from unsterilized cats are basically a guarantee so sometimes you just have to do the best you can.