Friend of Ferals Award Badge - Apply Here

[Deacon Blues]

Hello- two of our indoor cats were feral kittens, who we are raising. One remains a great deal wild. We have one outdoor feral cat. She comes to talk to the indoor cats, but refuses to come inside. She has her own FeralCatVilla and feeding station. She even has a body temperature, only, cat pad for nights below zero degrees, in the winter. Here is a photo of all 5 cats, including the Feral one,…

I forget to add, all of them are fixed, including the feral cat. She was a challnge, and I have a scare or two to prove it.

 

[Norachan]

Thank you for helping them Deacon Blues Your outdoor cat has a nice life with her heated Cat Villa. What a lucky girl!

Badge awarded.

 

[Deacon Blues]

Thank you! They are all happy cats!

 

[Prudi]

I am a member of the Doncaster south branch of a small charity (uk Cat Action Trust 1977) for fostering, rehoming -Trap neuter return for strays and ferals . As a group we are all voluntary but have a wide network of fosterers to help us.
we are one of the busiest branches- especially at the moment post COVID as everyone seems to be dumping their lockdown kitties and those that have had kittens we are inundated with pregnant cats and more kittens than an episode of Star Trek with tribbles !!
Finding a vet for the sheer volume of neutering is proving quite a challenge!!
A lot of our feral colonies (the trap neuter returns) go to farms to live out their days supervised and well fed.
I have my own three rescues and one little foster at present- he’s got his furever home adoption day on Friday
He’s a handsome gentle soul……

 

[Norachan]

Thank you for everything you're doing Prudi

Badge awarded.

 

[thanatos0042]

I am applying for the badge. I have cared wounded, abandoned and feral animals all my life, but especially cats.

Me and my roommates take care of feral cats on our side of our townhome community.
I always keep food and water out, as well as a built out shelter that has a tarp over it so they have a dry place to eat and sleep and when it gets colder, I put in totes with holes cut in them and blankets, as well as thermal shielding to help keep the heat in.
We earn their trust and then we get them for TNR to help control the population.
There's a vet we take them to that gives discounts for bringing up feral animals so that hurt animals can still get medical care. We have taken quite a few of ours for injuries and poisonings.
We have even found homes for some of them through the years, the ones get get and tame early, though sometimes we end up keeping them instead lol

Here I listed how our cats came to us, you'll note - most are rescues and we care for a small population of outside ones as well. We lost Anna, one of our long time ferals to dogs yesterday...got her to the vet, but there was nothing they could do, though I would have paid any price if they could have saved her.

I am not involved here as much as I want to be, but I suffer from a chronic disease and I have to pick and choose where I devote my energy and most of the time, it goes to them.

 

[Norachan]

Thank you for everything you are doing thanatos0042

Badge awarded.

 

[noani]

Hello,

I don't know where to start. I started out taking care of a colony of cats near my house (alley/courtyard situation). Started feeding them and gaining trust. Then, throughout the last years, I've managed to help that colony to the best of my abilities.

It isn't easy - I look to other countries with envy sometimes as in Sicily, there is ZERO help or organisations that do or even help with this. (I am originally from Germany and follow a lot of associations from Germany and US). The streets here are so full of strays and ferals that vets won't even look at them ("not worth it"). The attitude to animals here is appalling. The local government and institutions just put you on waiting lists and you never hear from them again. Vets have literally advised me to do nothing when I've found critically injured cats so I've had to find one that was willing to help them anyway, even if at great cost. All my spare income and a good part of my savings has been going into this for years.

Anyways, I won't be discouraged. So I kept doing what I was doing, but two females I wasn't able to trap and have spayed. So I continue to care for them and when they have kittens, they luckily let me approach and handle them so I do my best to socialize them to humans and find good homes when they are ready.
I've been successful except for a few. One was abandoned at 4 weeks old by his momma cat as he was the smallest and weakest. I brought him up with a bottle and ended up adopting him. Recently, one of his younger brothers got injured so I'm nursing him back to health and hoping I'll be able to adopt him too. There are currently two young ones left that are more feral as with that litter, she hid them for a few months so I'm working on socializing them more to get them adopted.
I've since started scoping out some other colonies in the area and started the slow trust building.

My ultimate goal and dream in life is to create an organisation or association that helps strays and ferals and does TNR and possible adoptions here.

It's so sad there is nothing of the sort or even close and people just plain. don't. care. about. animals.
It's a whole other mentality and I haven't been able to find many "allies", but I'm trying my best. There are a handful of people who help with advice and getting me traps and crates on loan.
My family and friends (mostly those in Germany and some colleagues here (I work with a lot of Americans)) have been generous and pitched in to help me bear some of the cost for the more complicated cases of injury (as with my current injured foster/hopefully soon part of the family cat Yoda).
Anyways, I think that's it, I'm doing what I can and try not to let hopelessness at the state of things here get to me.

 

[Norachan]

It sounds like a very difficult situation noani I'm glad to hear the cats have you on their side. I'm sure you're going to get a lot of support from everyone on TCS.

Badge awarded.

 

[Juls4477]

I am a member of Atascosa Animal Allies, small all volunteer 501C3 rescue group in South Texas. I'm a trapper for our TNVR program. I manage and feed 3 feral colonies. I also foster neonatal kittens and special medical cases.

 

[Anchoress]

Almost all my cats past and present have started as ferals. The last three I took in used to be street cats in Sligo. A lovely young Romanian woman saw the situation with ferals here in Ireland and started a-gathering. When she fell pregnant she needed to go home and I gained three small ferals. And the two local cats who live here are definitely ferals. Bless them. Settling and responding nicely. A far cry from my Siamese breeding and showing years ..but I love it all... One wee lad gave me a first ever purr this week. Awwwww

Did I pass? A unique situation out here and now I care for every cat on the island...

When Oliver, aka the Lone Ranger, arrived home with a skinny starving cat, as feral as they come, I named the cat Tonto. OLiver to Tonto. "Hey lad! You look hungry! You come along home with me. SHE will feed you. SHE will feed anyone."
My first night in Ireland I was woken by howling of starving cats. So I gave them my chicken stew ...That was several years ago . When I opened the door there was a feral cat behind every bush

 

[Norachan]

That's very nice of you to feed them all A Anchoress

Are you getting them all spayed and neutered too?

 

[Anchoress]

All done always before I accept them as else too complicated out here.

The island cats.. Apparently they had a purge in recent times. As I think you will understand island cats left to themselves run amok. See re Cape Clear Island for the right way to do this and Tory island for the wrong.


The three survivors here all male so the male owners decided as there are no "open females" they need not bother .

So all is well..

 

[Antonio65]

As I think you will understand island cats left to themselves run amok. See re Cape Clear Island for the right way to do this and Tory island for the wrong.

Never been to Cape Clear Island, but been to Tory Island, and saw no cats.
Despite it is a small and not busy place, though, a dog was run over and killed while I was there. Shocking!

 

[Anchoress]

Never been to Cape Clear Island, but been to Tory Island, and saw no cats.
Despite it is a small and not busy place, though, a dog was run over and killed while I was there. Shocking!

If you google Tory Island cats you will see why no cats. It was brutal especially as a UK cat group had offered to take them all alive/
I was searching for my island home but when I read that.. no Tory Island for me.

Cape Clear is a wonderful story of how to deal with a cat problem.

 

[Antonio65]

I will google them both.

 

[Norachan]

That's wonderful A Anchoress Badge awarded!

Sorry, it takes us a little while to do these things. All our staff are volunteers and we're in different time zones, so please bear with us.

 

[Anchoress]

Ah bliss and apologies. Between the loud storm, power cuts and missing cats Cat Site is my one point of sanity.... THANK YOU

PS I could not even smuggle the island cats off island to be fixed as the owner is the ferryman lol

Odd though; Dominic still has his .. appendages… but never a whiff or spray

 

[kittymama18]

I have tamed, spay/neutered fed/cared for over 50 feral, semi-feral, and stray cats. I've found cushy homes for ones who can be rehomed, and currently care for 20 who live on my porch and eat me out of house and home. I just spent 2 grand healing the near-death bout of IBS one of them experienced. (She was a feral kitten, is now a happy loving adult kitty who made lots of friends at the vets during her extended hospital stay.)

 

[nurseangel]

We are at twelve; either former strays/ferals or adopted from a kill shelter. They have all been TNR'd. There is one (Big Red) who was the first to be captured. Now we are in the processing of taking everyone to the vet one at at time for more shots. Big Red is the only holdout, as he lives on our porch and won't let us anywere near him. All he has he's had was his initial visit. Wish us luck. He will be one tough customer and I don't think he will ever look at a cage in the same way again.