Ohh my how many are there I live in town

Tonight coming home with Gigi my dog from our walk I met our first REAL feral... I could see from the side walk a dark looking cat ... the cat bolted at about 50 miles an hour when I got within 25 ft of it ... Best I could tell it was a black longhair... I have never seen this one before ever... I live in town be it small and backing to a forested area but how many can there be ... that is two night only cats so far...

I wonder that aswell about where I live. I don't recall seeing any cats outside of a residential area that didn't just sit there as you walked or drove past. These are not cats which are scared of humans... but there must be some...
I hope you see that one again.

Originally Posted by sharky

Tonight coming home with Gigi my dog from our walk I met our first REAL feral... I could see from the side walk a dark looking cat ... the cat bolted at about 50 miles an hour when I got within 25 ft of it ... Best I could tell it was a black longhair... I have never seen this one before ever... I live in town be it small and backing to a forested area but how many can there be ... that is two night only cats so far...

Click to expand...

Someone once told me the rule of thumb is...if you see 1 you probably have at least 3....if you see 2 you probably have 6 and so on. Forested areas are known "dump sites"...so perhaps if you get the urge..you can borrow a trap and see if you catch anyone.

Katie

Humm I am getting the urge to see ... cause I know there were three "forest" cats so I have a small herd in theroy... Guess I need a bigger food dish and water dish and the 20lb bag food special

It's hard to know. Feral cats stick close to human habitats because where there are humans, there is trash and trash=food. But they are also very wary of people and make themselves pretty scarce when people are around.

Definitely, if you see one you can assume there is more than one out there. As for how many there are exactly, often it's not possible to really know this until you have neutered and eartipped everyone and you stop seeing non-eartipped cats showing up at the food bowl! But it would not be unreasonable to expect that there may be as many as 20 there, and of the adults probably around 2/3-3/4 are feral (born in the colony) and 1/4-1/3 are abandoned/dumped pet cats.

well so far the outside "kids" are eating about 3 cups a night and I have some times that some are visiting... I need to get some traps and see who is around... I am guessing there are four so two I havent met up with

Anyone know how to find tnr groups in an area ... I cant find any and I dont want to mess up...