May you be many times blessed for putting your caring into action for these precious ones. I can't comment more, because my comments would not be at all printable, regarding the devils that would even think of harming or neglecting a cat, except to say that I advocate for capital punishment for anyone wilfully harming any cat, as was law in ancient Egypt, a far more evolved society than any currently on this earth.Estella and Astrid (siblings) were about seven months old when their previous owners--if we can call them that--decided they had too many pets and decided to use them for target practice and mentioned the possibility of burying them alive. My daughter knew the people because of my ex-husband, so she begged me to take the cats instead. Both Astrid and Estella had not eaten in a few days by the time I got them. They were going to be my only cats.
Then came Fennimore and Willow. I know that they were born near a barn belonging to a friend of a friend. The mother and two or three other siblings disappeared and it is assumed that they were killed by coyotes based on evidence the friend found. Three kittens were saved: Fennimore, Willow, and Pip. (Pip lives with my friend.) They were feral and almost three months old. They were supposed to be the last addition to our cat family.
Tara and Simon are next. We know very little about them other than the fact that they were strays who were abandoned or lost and had been on their own for an unknown amount of time. We do not know if they knew each other before they started living on the street, but we do know that they are bonded. Simon was 8 or 9. Tara was 5 or 6. Simon was sick and near death, but was saved by Tara who broke out of her rescuer's house and led her to Simon who was collapsed under a bush. We know that Tara had at least one litter of kittens at some point based on what the vet saw. I was supposed to take Simon and Tara was supposed to stay with my friend, but we decided it was best to keep them together. (It did not hurt that Tara liked me more than she did my friend.)
Next came Evangeline (Her Royal Highness Evangeline Evayne Snow, Princess Piggy Piggy, Benevolent Ruler of All). She is another stray that was either abandoned or lost. She lived for about three years behind the restaurant where my son was a sous chef. She had several litters during those three years. The one owner adored her and fed her scraps from the kitchen, although she would not come near enough to let him pet her. He called her "Miss Kitty." The other owner, his wife, did not want her around because she had walked into the restaurant a few times during dinner service. One night, when her last litter was about four months old and gone, Evangeline came up to my son and let him pet her. He caught her and we brought her home. We know that she was seven or eight at the time and had been on her own for at least three years. She is extremely skittish and shy but is the sweetest cat ever to live. Unfortunately, she has a chronic ear infection and is partially deaf. Her ear often makes her eye infected, too. (Three different vets, countless antibiotics, and no relief for her.)
Then there was Freya. My daughter found her in the street across the road from us. She was two months old feral who was somewhat used to people. We think her mother is one of the cats in the local colony. We, along with a small group of others, take care of the colony and try to make sure they are all fixed, but sometimes a new one slips in who is already pregnant. (The possible mother is now fixed.) She is exceptionally small, although she does not have the characteristics of dwarfism.
Finally, Silas. He was four to five weeks old when he was found with his sister in an outside display at a Dollar General. I took him and the woman who actually got them out of the display took his sister. He was in very bad shape. Covered in fleas and ringworm, dehydrated, and malnourished, he was so weak that we had to wake him to feed him. We know that he had some interactions with humans because he had been burned on his left hip with a cigarette lighter (the kind found in older cars). The vet said that it was a deep burn and was about two weeks old. Her guess is that he was part of an unwanted litter or that some unethical breeder had dumped Silas and his sister.