Foo - Our backyard is being infested with barn cats!

Back in april this little gray stray came by our back yard, and I noticed her drinking from our pool when I was upstairs, we fed it, it stayed around from February, had kittens in April, and now is an indoor/outdoor cat. Now that it's frigid out we let her stay in the kitchen and the kittens, well theyre not so little anymore, stay in the laundry room during the night and kitchen in the day. My mom saw this tabby, most likely male, roam in the back a couple months ago, and in this past week weve been hearing its peculiar low howl probably cause its cold. Well this morning my mom says she really hears him and so do I behind our garage and then it screams and stuff..i think it was in a catfight, and when it's lighter out I can see its footprints walking in the snow. I go to the grocery store later and as im pulling out the driveway I see it in front of me and I talk to it, but it trottles off in our front yard. When we got back I saw it in our backyard and go up to it. It disappears in our big bushes and I follow its footprints and see it went down this little 1 foot width path that has our old wooden fence and this new brick fence theyre building. So then tonight I go out to close the garage like 30 min ago, and see a white/orange cat (male i take it) in the back like 30 feet from me. I go out and our mom cat is already out and goes up to him and theyre all cool (so no catfight, whew)..then it trottles off and meows its head off, and I walk up to it slowly. It eventually comes and i pet it, then get some crunchy food, which it eats up, and starts to roll around on my feet, whatever that means. Its behavior is similiar to the mom cat we kept. So now there are two strays and our cat with her two kittens we keep around. Oh great. There is large large horse barn by me, so Im assuming these cats came from there. What should I do? Take these two, if I catch them to PetSmart to be adopted or something or let it roam in the cold and feed it periodically? I dont want our cat to be out there and then have it get in a catfight with them, though our cat is pretty fierce. I guess cause she gets fed more, she'll be stronger.

Oh Man! You fed a stray cat? Man, you're in for it...
Now the cat will be telling all his or her buddies and next thing you know, we'll be seeing you on the news as the Dallas Cat guy with 47,993 cat's in the back yard!

Ill take pics of them when theyre around:D

cats in the house, bleah.

I love cats, but I wouldn't want too many of them hanging around. I'd be worried about the female having more kittens.

As Bob Barker would say: "Help control the pet population. Have your pets spayed or neutered."

Hahahahah.
Hi Bob Barker

Paragraphs are your friend. Stop feeding stray cats. Or build them someplace warm to sleep at night and let them forage for mice in the wild.

Put a few bowls of Monster outside for them to drink (lace it with catnip if they don't like it). Get a video camera, and record the mayhem. Then upload it and show it to us! :D

Our neighbors had a horse stable and they kept cats around. They moved in with three. That became 8 or so, which became 20+, which became 50+.

They moved and took as many as they could find (to another horse stable, bigger, make more cash), leaving probably 5 or 6 behind. The people who moved in to their old house probably have a hundred cats now. You can go by and see two or three fresh ones squished on the road, but it doesn't matter, they're growing at an absolutely epidemic rate. I really don't know what they're going to do.

I happen to like cats. I have two that are mainecoon mixed breeds. Smart, lots of character, but the two of them are more than enough cat. I honestly don't think I could handle taking in a batch of strays unless they all were easily trained and had a bit of a personality.

I once let this type of thing get out of hand and I ended up with like twenty five 6-toed inbred wild kittens that would scratch your face off if you tried to handle them living in my garage and my girlfriend would cry everytime she ran one of them over....

Ever since then it's three neutered cats max, although I'm breaking the rules a little now since the last stray that adopted us isn't neutered yet.

Stray cats that adopt you are special and you should treat them that way, just don't let it get out of hand...

:)

have the female neutered, and all the other little females she
has produced.
I know some folks up in Ok. that had this huge problem with barn cats, there were
tons of them (until the coyotes thinned the population).

marty

I (well, my parents actually) have 3 cats. Only one is actually ours (a spayed female). Over the years, we've had a couple non-neutered male strays "adopt" us for short periods of time (until they move on, or get killed). Then a neutered male (obviously not a stray, well taken care of) adopted us and has been living with us for probably 2 years now. He's become part of the family.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/Taerom/Cats.jpg

The black one on the left is the fixed male, the calico in the middle is our fixed female, and the orange on the right is another stray, not fixed.

The black one on the left is the fixed male, the calico in the middle is our fixed female, and the orange on the right is another stray, not fixed.
I'm surprised they get along so well, mine are very territorial and don't do much socializing with each other, only with the humans.

Put a few bowls of Monster outside for them to drink (lace it with catnip if they don't like it). Get a video camera, and record the mayhem. Then upload it and show it to us! :D
:roflmao: you are truly a magificent bastid :D

good information here:

http://www.feralcat.com/

I'm surprised they get along so well, mine are very territorial and don't do much socializing with each other, only with the humans.

The two males don't like to be too close to each other. You can tell they're both a little pissed off in the pic.

thems good eatin'!

kitty, the other white meat.

Pull out the air-gun, you've got food for months on end... There's an online-video somewhere showing you yummy recipes to prepare kitties... Pakistani I think...

China's big on eating cats. My cousin went there for 6 months and got a kitten from a roadside stand, and they broke its neck right after she paid for it.

China's big on eating cats. My cousin went there for 6 months and got a kitten from a roadside stand, and they broke its neck right after she paid for it.
That's horrible:eek:

http://www.machinegun.pl/sklep/images/marushin_mossberg500_8mm.jpg

get a dog, preferably one with predatory instincts.

I (well, my parents actually) have 3 cats. Only one is actually ours (a spayed female). Over the years, we've had a couple non-neutered male strays "adopt" us for short periods of time (until they move on, or get killed). Then a neutered male (obviously not a stray, well taken care of) adopted us and has been living with us for probably 2 years now. He's become part of the family.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/Taerom/Cats.jpg

The black one on the left is the fixed male, the calico in the middle is our fixed female, and the orange on the right is another stray, not fixed.

What are you doing with my cat!?!?! The one in the middle looks just like our fixed female.

EJ - All you'd need to do is invite Michigander over for a weekend. Overpopulation problem solved. :p

get them all nuetered, or your neighborhood will be overrun with feral cats.

EJ - All you'd need to do is invite Michigander over for a weekend. Overpopulation problem solved. :p
:roflmao: Ill pass.


I just got home a minute ago, well I went to school but felt really sick from w/e virus/bacteria I have, and when pulled around the back, by the pool in the iron chairs was our mom cat, and the tabby male ferel barn cat on the other chair, just both of them lounging. The guy cat sort of trottled off and them meowed at me. Well I hope we dont get more kittens. If so, anyone here want them?:D

Sure, I'll take a couple. Just stick them in a box with some packing peanuts and send them via UPS. I'll pay shipping.

http://www.animalcontrolproducts.com/Sg51690.jpg

What happened to muffin top tennesse?

I'm surprised they get along so well, mine are very territorial and don't do much socializing with each other, only with the humans.We had an orange tabby for 15 years that would not let another cat in the house. He turned from very lovable to the cat from he**. Now we have two male tabbies, one orange and one brown who are best buddies. Where one is the other usually is too. They even sleep in one big cat ball pretty often.

I just opened the back door and our cat came right in, and the orange calico kind (with a very short stubby tail) almost came in, but I closed the door just so he wouldnt squeeze in. What should I do?? Capture it and take it to petsmart? Idont want it to have kittens with our cat.
Here is our stray we;ve had for almost a year:
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y251/viperfx10/IMG_2924.jpg

And here is the orange/white (manx??) that now sticks around:
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y251/viperfx10/IMG_2926.jpg

It's sad he's trying to sleep standing up:
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y251/viperfx10/IMG_2925.jpg