How To Care For Ferals While Keeping My Resident Cat Healthy?

[smosmosmo]

As the weather's been warming up we've been getting a bunch of new cats moving into the neighborhood - I've seen at least three and sometimes hear them fighting at night. Kitten season's coming up and I really want to get them TNR'ed and start feeding the colony, but I have no idea where to start and I'm also a bit paranoid about transferring diseases to my own cat. She is very, very difficult at the vet so I try to make sure I keep her as healthy as possible - I do get scared of getting pathogens on me then making her sick.

Is the risk of this pretty negligible or are there steps I can take to make sure my own cat doesn't catch anything? Also, how do I care for a colony without making my cat feel like her territory's been overrun? My bedroom overlooks a balcony that's right next to our front garden, so I want to avoid them marking or pooping near her spot if possible. Would feeding them toward the back of the house be the way to go?

 

[Furballsmom]

Hello, let me see if I can find an expert or two to help you.

 

[Jcatbird]

Hi! I’m so glad you want to help the kitties. It is important. This can be accomplished without contaminating your own kitty or making her feel as though her world has been over run. I had the same concern in past years.

I would have a feeding station set up away from areas your kitty enjoys. ( Is she an inside kitty? If she goes outside you want to make sure she has immunizations up to date and flea prevention. Supervised outdoor time is always best for kitties and if you are outside with her then I doubt another cat will even approach. Most illness is spread through mating and biting.) I would make sure that there is a place for the others to eat that also allows room for a separate area as an outside kitty potty. I bought soil and sand to encourage the kitties to use an area away from my house for a potty. They loved it. Feeding was closer to my house under shelters that I had rigged up with tarps. If your backyard can accommodate both then I would put both there. You just have to put space between the two areas. The cats won’t go potty very near where they eat. If it can only do one of these things then I would feed in the side or front and have the potty in back.
As far as spreading germs from you goes, I wear a certain set of clothes when working with new cats. I wash my hands well and change my outer layer of protective clothing between handling new cats and my own. I shower if there is a flea issue. Nothing has spread from the kitties. Keep in mind how your vet handles many cats a day and washes up between animals.
If you bring a kitty inside it needs to be isolated from your kitty. I just put them in a room away from my cats and kept the door shut. ( I did administer a flea treatment before bringing them in. A Capstar pill was given and I took them to the vet quickly, Usually the next morning.) I socialized the ones I spayed and neutered for adoption so we had to go through the whole vet testing and immunization schedule before any cats were introduced to the others. Although I have pulled in a very small number that had health issues, none spread the illness to any other. Just making sure that you wash hands and practice good sanitary measures should protect your kitty. Once a kitty is removed from my isolation area, I santize it thoroughly before bringing in another. Litter boxes are cloroxed and in the case of having a sick kitty the box was removed from the house and after cleaning it I left it where the sun could help purify it or I disposed of it entirely, depending on the illness. Many outside cats do have some form of worms. Gloves are a good idea!
I have one FeLV cat that I have had for over a decade. He can’t live with all the others but is in the house. He has not spread the illness. I have one FIV kitty that also has heartworms. He has not lived with us as long as my other but he has not shared his illness either. He lived in the colony with many other cats and not one of the others caught it. The thing that seemed to be most commonly shared was fleas! Ugh! Once the cats were on regular treatments, that was stopped. I started working with the first colony of kitties in 2007, the second was much more recently and nothing has been spread through my working with them. The only illness spread was done so through mating, fighting or fleas and that was all done before I trapped them. TNR prevents the spread of disease and an increase in feral populations.
I know many people who work closely with lots of colony cats but with isolation done by all, none have had an illness transferred. Good hygiene and isolation are key! I hope this helps.
Bravo to you for wanting to stop the fighting and do TNR! Thank you for that. I wish everyone would!
Please post again if you have any more questions. I am sure others will weigh in here with more tips and information.