Do others have this problem

[Danielle_E.]

I have one house cat and 3 barn cats, well four now, well five now, well.... The 3 barn cats that are mine are Shrek, Waldo and Tabitha. Just before winter set in "Gavin" (that is what I have now named him) showed up and he stayed. Gavin wants so much to trust but still has a difficult time accepting a scratch or petting, even though when he does allow it he loves it and throws himself on the ground. A tom cat showed up just afer Christmas and started terrorizing my gang basically. I saw him last night and Gavin start yowling like the wind at him so the tom cat just kept walking and didn't instigate any fights. Now about a month ago a pretty black and white cat showed up and I noticed that this cat was a she and obviously pregnant. This is a very wild cat but she sticks around to be fed basically. I know most of these cats come from the property next door and the guy that lives there is a wing-nut in my opinion. He boasts to me that he must have about 40 cats on his 60 acres

and he doesn't feed them!!!!

. I started about 2 month ago putting out a HUGE container of dry food in the evening and one night I counted 7 cats around that food and not one of them was mine!

Anyway this morning I went to the barn and went into the tack room to see a blurr of black and white come flying out of there... you guessed it, the black and white female had her litter in the tackroom which is fine but I can't get near her. I moved the babies from the plastic bin she had them in and put them in the cat beds that are in the tackroom. She would not go into the tackroom until I left and hissed at me as I came out and she watched me from the other side of the barn. I waited till she went back into the tackroom and shut the door as quickly as possible. She has food and water in there plus her babies and some peace of not having my cats pestering to the see the babies as was going on this morning when I came upon the scene.

There are 5 kittens and so far (in this short time) I have found homes for 3 of the 5. I am so tempted to march over to the guy next door in 8 weeks and hand over the last two kittens and say "here, take responsibility" but I know he would just turn them outside with no food or shelter and more than likely they would just end up at my place again for a meal. I am getting tired of getting other peoples cats spayed or neutered and then finding them good homes. Thanks for letting me vent. They are cute though and if my grandaughter Makayla knew they were in the barn she would be begging me "Grandma, can we keep just one? please grandma? ROFL. I am not going to tell her they are there, lol.

 

[backwoodsnanny]

We also have a cat problem but though sometimes they are strays who simply find their way here other times it is because people drop them off. Last Spring about this time of year we were inundated with 3 batches of cats that were simply left at the end of our drive. I have 2 inside cats and do have 2 barn cats but these are as you have said wild to the point of not being able to touch them. Two batches went with our animal control officer the third just disappeared after a couple of days but have no idea where. The wild ones we see now and then but you cant get close to them. I would like to put up a sign thiat the shelter is in our neighboring town and to please use it.

 

[Sixstardanes]

Does your area offer a feral cat spay/neuter program?

This is where they alter cats and release them back in the area they originally came from.

While this won't help the non feeding aspect of the owner it can bring down the population

which will probably save you $ in the long run.

Best of luck with the kitties.

We have 6 totally indoor spayed & neutered cats

ages from 16 down to 2yrs of age.

 

[Reble]

Yep our neighbor, on a nice sunny day all around his shop has about 20 or more cats, and kittens coming like crazy and of course my one spayed Nemo which we have tried feeding in so many different places, I believe him and I both forget where his food dish is.

I told my neighbors wife when we get our snow plowing bill, tell your husband he will be getting a feed bill, she asked why? oh your cats that I have been feeding all winter, she just laughed.

Not funny for only owning one cat is getting awful expensive to feed. Yes, they will scatter when we walk in the shed, barn or even open our door, where at times get into our garbage :arg!

We are tempted, because of our live trap for the rats, might miss a few to some of my friends.

Wish they would at least pay their way by getting the rats, by the way we did catch 20 total rats during the winter and that was our finale count, trap has been empty for a long time now.

 

[Magic]

We had a stray cat problem to some extent at our old place, but here we are too far from people to attract other people's cats, thank goodness! Also, our two Livestock Guardian Dogs surely deter them if they do come around. The dogs are great with our two barn cats (male neutered and female spayed) but warn off anything not "theirs".

I feel for those of you who are inadvertently feeding hordes of other people's cats! There's got to be a solution to that, somehow!