feral kittens

Please take them to a shelter.  They were born wild, but they are young kittens. It is easy enough to get them into homes.

There is no such thing as a healthy feral cat population, so if they aren't someone's pet, they really need to be taken to a place that can find them homes (or, if you feel so inclined, you can take them in yourself.)

How old are they?

Your action plan, should you decide to be an angel to these abandoned kittens:

• They are probably dangerously dehydrated. Give them a bowl of water; if they are too young to drink out of a bowl, give them water with a syringe.

• Get them started on kitten formula right away. Petco, Petsmart, Walmart - any of them will have the supplies you need. In the meantime, give them some sugar water or cane syrup. Something to give them some calories.

• Call a local shelter and ask them how you can help these kittens stay alive for the short term.

Use the power of Facebook. Kittens are adorable - I bet you can find someone to provide a home for them.  Post photos of them sleeping, taking their formula, just being generally cute. Blog about their progress. Someone will take an interest.

My youngest cat was a feral kitty. He is the sweeeeeeeetest little boy. He was discovered when he was 4 weeks old - very sick, dehydrated, the mama kicked him out. My friends rescued him, took him to the vet (he had a bad infection - there was a rampant virus affecting many feral cats in the area).

He turned 7 years old last month. He's the cat's meow. You can almost the cloudy film over his right eye - the virus was making him blind.

(lorenzo hangin.jpg)

At that age, you can get the feral out of them and they'll become great house cats.  Right now theyre too helpless and hungry to be afraid and run away.  Once they get a bit older, then they'll be feral.  

I have 8 cats, all from a feral population that live in my moms barn, all gotten when they were kittens.  Long story how we got so many, but to make it short, we got the last 3 b/c when we took 5 to the shelter, they would only take the larger 2, the other 3 were too small.  We found out a day later they euthanized ALL the kittens b/c of a suppossed outbreak of distemper (yes we called BS)  So after nursing them for 4 weeks, we couldnt give up the 3 black ladys to the shelter, knowing they would just be put down.  Thats also how we got two others, we knew they would just be put down.  You just get too attached sometimes.

Blacks cats are put down the most.  Black and white cats the second most.  Thats why we have 4 blacks and 2 B/W's

So now we have too many cats.... But I digress.

All of the cats were kittens we had to nurse, as was said before, you can do it.  It takes time as you will have to syringe feed for a while, we use this. KMR, mixed with chicken baby food (gerber stage 2)

Mix in a little chix at first,, so you can still get it though the syringe, and then adding more and homefully getting them to eat on their own after a few weeks.  You'll figure it out when they start lapping the syringe, and not suckling.

You may not be able to take them to the shelter right away as they are young.  They may ask you to ween them and get them bigger before you can bring them in.  But they will give you advise on what to do.

PM me if you have any questions.   

Edited to add: We were able to capture the feral cats in the barn and have them all fixed - the local shelter does it for free for feral cats.  The Cats keep the rats out of the barn so we want the cats, even though we cant pet them as they run away, we just dont want to add any more to the population (or my house)

?Hate to say this but feral and domestic cats are the #1 killer of song birds in North America and are reorted to be the cause of several extinct species in some of the pacific islands and Austrailia...don't even get me started on what they do to other small animals.  They are a very advanced predator.

Keep your cats inside and get the ferral kittens adopted or destroyed (I do own a cat and am not heartless).

I wonder if loss of habitat and an encroaching population has been a greater threat to birds.

I have always kept my cats indoors. I live in the city - cars are a big killer of cats.

When you live in the wild, everything is prey.

Just remembered a time when I had my cat, Blueberry, with me outside while I was doing yardwork. She was enjoying the sun. A bluejay was dive-bombing her. She didn't move a bit. I went indoors for something, came back out and the bluejay was laying on the ground, under her paw. I told her to let it go, she did and it flew away.

My sister is a vet with the Humane Society and she mentioned this issue a while ago so I had her write an email of what she said someone should do:

We do the spay/neuter for a really reduced rate ($10-25) and rent traps out at no charge but we rely on the public to trap and release the cats. We don't do the actual trapping ourselves. 

It is always better to deal with this by spaying mom and not waiting til there are kittens but it is what it is. 

Usually kittens need to be 2 lb and healthy and friendly to be adopted out if the local shelter has those resources to adopt them. What I would do depends how old they are. If they are old enough to eat canned food then he should bring them in the house and feed and socialize them until they are 2 lb. If they are not even eating you can try to bottle feed them but honestly that is so tough and so many die anyway that I think it is better to put them down. What I definitely wouldn't do is just leave them there if they are truly abandoned. They will be killed by other animals or starve, much worse than humane euthanasia. 

Once they are 2 lb I would see if a shelter or rescue will take them. The alternative is to spay and neuter them and release them or find them homes privately. But I would not rehome them unless they are spayed and neutered. The cycle will just continue. 

Update: while feeding them (cows milk because I didn't have the opportunity to get them kitten milk) last night, they were making a major mewing racket.  Mama cat must have heard them and had a change of heart and took 2 of them back to wherever her new nest is.  So as of this morning, I am down to 2, but hoping she comes for them while I am at work.  If she doesn't, I will get the proper food for them.  I don't really want to take them in because I have 2 dogs and also don't know much about raising cats.  I think I will keep feeding them until the weekend and if mama doesn't come for the other 2 I will try to find a shelter that will take (and hopefully not kill) them.  But I many of the shelters are overrun with cats as it is and they often won't take them.

Thank you everyone for your input and suggestions!  Keep your fingers crossed that mama cat does the right thing!

Edited to add:  I just saw the last entry before this.  Shelters in our area have a trap and release program for ferals, too, but last I looked they do it by appointment only and are booked months out.  We had hoped to catch the mother before she had more babies (she had a litter last year, too) but she is very wily and knows to not go in the trap.

That is GREAT news. I was hoping you would rescue quick enough to keep them alive.

My former husband and I rescued this little guy. I knew nothing about feeding a baby bird but a quick trip to the pet store gave me enough information so that I could keep him until he had all his feathers. We called him Scooter and he lived in the house with us, 2 cats and 2 dogs. I think kittens are a little easier than a bird, but really not by much. You just feed them and clean up after them.

By the way, start posting pics of the kitties to your Facebook. I'd be surprised if someone didn't want to give them a home. Costs you nothing but a few minutes of your time.

(Scooter Baby.jpg)

(scooter fat and happy.jpg)

Final update:  last night there were still 2 kittens left that mama didn't pick up, so my husband went to the local pet store to purchase some kitten milk and a proper bottle/feeder (I was swimming).  The clerk, knowing we have dogs, looked at himstrangely and asked what this was for.  He told him the story and the owner's teen daughter overheard the conversation and said she would like to take care of them.  Husband was happily surprised, paid for the supplies and gave them to her and went home to get the kittens.

I will miss the little buggers, especially the one I dubbed 'white ears' (I made sure to say goodbye to them yesterday before I left for work just in case they were gone when I got home).  They were cute, but I'm glad the lady took them because now they won't add to the feral problem and they have a good home and I don't have to worry about them. 

Yay! I love happy endings.

By the way, my big-butt baby dog gets chased around by my cats all the time. He runs from them.