Irresponsible cat neighbors?

[littledog]

We have a very similar situation however its a tad more serious as we now have kittens are now snuggled in our garage! They are super cute, friendly and about 3-4 weeks old. Its a tiny village and we know everyone, no one claiming ownership (although we have our suspicions). The mum cat has a collar but it has no details on it and needs removing as its to small IMHO. I know vet fees are extortionate (bad experiences tell me so) an with the 9 week vaccines looming id love to know some options. I'd love to keep one cat but not 5 and a mother! Can I sell them before the vaccines?

Sorry, I feel bad as I'm very unversed in cat care so any help is appreciated! Also please tell me if I'm taking over this thread, happy to start a new one!

Can you touch and pet the mother cat, or is she too skittish? Does she let you pick up her babies? My suggestion is to get the collar off the mum, take her to the vet and get her spayed, then keep her and find a way to get good homes for the kittens.

"sell them before the vaccines" !!! Do people in your area pay real money for kittens? In my area (granted, the USA, but my state has better animal welfare laws than most and lots of resources where you can bring kittens and they will get a good home) too many kittens are being born so it's more of a challenge to find good homes for them. Some people try to get money for them, claiming typical kittens are some rare breed, but for the most part, by the time they are 9 weeks old, responsible people relinquish them to their local rescue or animal control. Irresponsible people let them run away, and kill lots of songbirds and spread diseases among the local cat population, before being airlifted by a hawk or run over by a car.

Does your village or one nearby have an animal control or SPCA? They should be able to help.

 

[BDutch]

We don’t have cats of our own, but very often we have neighbourhood cats in our yard. The cats are free to go outside day and night/ part of the day depending on the neighbour. Some people have indoor cats too. Personal choices.

We cat-sit the neighbours cats when they are away on a vacation. One neighbour keeps the cats locked up during this time. The other with the cats-door, installed a auto feeder. And I just have to check if it works and give fresh water every other day.

Most cats dont harm chickens. There was one I didnt trust. A real hunter. I lost several bantams in that period. But he moved with his owner to another place.

We also had a cat in our garden that seemed neglected last winter. She ate from the chicken feed when she had a chance or went in to eat at our neighbors place who have a cat door in their back door. After 5 months the daughter of a woman who was the owner saw the cat by coincidence , picked it up and took her home. This is an indoor cat who broke out and managed to survive all this time. I tried to figure out if someone was missing the cat. Checked the lost pet site. Reported her. But apparently the owner didn’t report her.

Normal cats do not much harm, and in general people tolerate them.

Benefit of cats: they hunt mice and baby rats. So I have no problems with them.
Cons; some cats poop in other people gardens . And many kill songbirds .

 

[BDutch]

I just did not want to get it locked in our garage at night when we shut our doors.

I have locked up a neighbour cat in the chicken run several times, one time overnight. Two cats like to hang out in the chicken run. The sand-bath spot (warm and dry) is favourite.

If the neighbours miss their cat in the evening at dinner time, they come to ask if she is in our barn or in the chicken run. They always keep the cats inside the house at night.

 

[TelfTheElf]

Can you touch and pet the mother cat, or is she too skittish? Does she let you pick up her babies?

100% - she is the friendliest cat on the WHOLE planet. We have a 1yo that treats more like a pillow than a cat and no reaction, no teeth, no claws, no hiss! Happy to climb onto moving diggers and dumpers, maybe to friendly for her own good sometimes. She is very chilled with the kittens, was lying in the sun the other day with the kittens and she snuggled up and went sleep with her chin on my shoulder. Kinda makes me tempted to keep all of them ngl

sell them before the vaccines" !!! Do people in your area pay real money for kittens?

I have a friend who just sold some special breed of cat for £700 per kitten at about 14 weeks old, however, I don't know our mum cat is a special breed.

I also had totally forgotten about microchips - as she has collar there may be a tiny chance she is chipped. I'll see about getting to the vet and checking this out.

 

[littledog]

We have two "barn cats", each with an ear cut as they do to them to designate they are fixed in case they go feral.

The other thing they sometimes do is a green tattoo on the tummy to designate they are neutered.

We have two cats, one was a feral ginger 5-month-old kitten (Pumpkin) who our late dog invited to live here three years ago. The other is a fluffy black former barn cat, Sarah. Our vet (who is also a horse person, as I am) informed me that when you move your horses to a new barn, it's not wrong to kidnap your favorite barn cat and take her home and make her a pet, so that's how Sarah came to live with us a year later.

When we took in each of them, we got them checkups and vaccinations, and made appointments to get them spayed - and how lucky we were that both of them had the green belly tattoo to designate they had already been spayed.

Pumpkin is an in-and-out cat, because she knows how to take care of herself. She was born around here and sticks to exploring our field, keeping our chicken coop free of rodents, and avoiding the street.
Sarah we keep inside unless we're also outside with her to supervise, because we can't trust her to understand that she needs to keep off the road. She's useless as a rodent-hunter, but she's the perfect insect-destroyer (she can sweep a fly out of the air in a nanosecond) so she is safer and able to maximize her talents as a mostly indoor cat.

 

[littledog]

I also had totally forgotten about microchips - as she has collar there may be a tiny chance she is chipped. I'll see about getting to the vet and checking this out.

Same here, I forgot that fluffy black Sarah turned out to have a microchip, but it wasn't registered to anybody. No clue how that happened, but I was able to register the number in my name on a generic microchip site.

 

[BlindLemonChicken]

I used to adopt feral cats from a program that specifically trapped, fixed, and relocated cat colonies. Those cats could not be kept inside and had to be adopted in pairs. I am not at all an indoor cat person so this program was great for me. Now I just feed the stray cats someone drops off at the neighbors’. They aren’t friendly at all and that’s exactly how I like them. I know that most people keep cats indoors and let them on the furniture etc but cats don’t always like to be inside or even with “their person.” We have kept them around for squirrel control when we lived on an organic urban farm, rat and mice control in an urban area and now for mice control in a rural setting. A cat with a job is a happy cat. A cat begging neighbors for food is a nuisance lol and there is a fine line between them.

 

[dearmeghann]

We love cats over here! It's basically a cat sanctuary and chicken farm, haha! Our property is in a mostly rural area, but we have acquired quite a few community cats. We've rehomed a bunch, and spayed at least three girls. But for the ones who weren't rehomed, we love them as our own. They love us! And they love being outside. They get fed similarly to our inside cats (fully inside, I wouldn't let the two groups interact, just in case of diseases). They also get supplemental mice, moles, and snakes that they hunt.

Our outside numbers keep growing, and we haven't lost that many - mostly, they were the random tom cats that would come around. We have a cat door on our garden shed so they can escape predators. They sometimes share it with opossums and skunks (especially during Hurricane Helene!)

Our neighbor hasn't spayed their cat (she's more of a neighborhood cat, but still! They've claimed her!) So when she had her litter of kittens in our pump house, we staked our claim on her. She's getting spayed as soon as these kittens are eating hard food. That'll make all female cats spayed - HURRAY! I'm hoping that'll keep the tomcat population down in our area.

Our house isn't right on the main road. I can't imagine owning outdoor cats and not keeping them on your property. I don't even like it when our girls make their way farther down our driveway.

 

[Smokerbill]

My next door neighbor's cat considers my property part of its hunting ground, and I'm glad about that because it seems to keep the small rodents in check.

But there was a period when it was using a part of my garden as its litterbox, and I did what I could to discourage that. I haven't seen signs of it digging in the garden for a couple years now.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Same here, I forgot that fluffy black Sarah turned out to have a microchip, but it wasn't registered to anybody. No clue how that happened, but I was able to register the number in my name on a generic microchip site.

If a microchip company goes out of business, the owners have to register to a new company. If they don't, an animal can still be microchips, but not have any info when scanned