Fixing Half A Cat Colony Is Like Being a "Little" Pregnant

“We have been so pleased with the results from the TNR program. It has been a healthy year with only adults present. Often the kittens (before TNR) were sickly and too wild to provide care, resulting in terminal disease. The population has stabilized now with individuals staying around instead of roaming and getting hit in the road. We have two new additions to our colony that need spay/neuter vouchers. The new arrivals have been eating here consistently for the last three weeks.“

Feedback like this on our Managed Feral Colony Assistance Program is music to our ears. This Ann Arbor caregiver followed through and fixed her entire barn colony of 16 cats late last fall, and has been reaping the benefits ever since. It’s relatively simple to achieve 100% sterilization if you train the cats to show at the same time each day and be hungry when they do – by meal-feeding and not leaving food out for extended time periods. That way you see all the cats most of the time – and even the most feral cats will be more trusting -- you become their “mom cat” --- providing their food like she did.

We’re delighted to pay to sterilize cats where the colony caregiver – who is also the property owner – is committed to maintaining their land as a kitten-free zone – by humanely caring for the adults and ensuring the entire group gets fixed quickly – even when it involves live-trapping feral cats. It’s a two-stage process: first fixing the existing colony and second monitoring the group at meal time. Most of the time the existing colony will keep newcomers from settling in but occasionally a new cat will come by that they accept. When they do, identify the newcomer(s)and fix them before they reproduce.

As this caregiver points out – colonies of sterilized outdoor cats tend to be healthier – males no longer getting infections from scratches and bite wounds -- caused from fighting with other unsterilized male cats -- and females are stronger -- no longer diverting their energy to one or more litters of kittens each year. Kittens born outdoors before a colony is fixed can often be socialized and placed in good indoor homes – but only if the mother lets you handle them before they turn 8 weeks old. If not – as the caregiver points out – they stay feral and their best option is to live in their outdoor colony. Although adult cats do as well as other wildlife living outdoors, kittens have a 50% mortality rate. Their immature immune systems can turn even routine health problems into life-threatening events – especially if they’re too feral to be treated.

Sadly, we sometimes provide spay/neuter funding to caregivers that for whatever reason can’t or won’t follow through to get their entire group of cats fixed. When they only partially fix their cats -- often the kittens but not the adults -- their efforts (and ours) are foiled. As this unfortunate caregiver points out:


“I had no cats until about a year ago, and then I found a female feral cat living in my wood shed with two kittens. I was able to catch them, but not her. Now she has had two more kittens. They desperately need to be fixed. Thank you for your help.”

Situations like this won’t get under control until the caregiver recognizes the futility of fixing only part of her group. She needs to go back to basics -- provide daily meals at the same time and place every day and then live-trap the adult(s) for her veterinary appointments. Her number of cats will grow and the situation will continue to spiral out of control until she does.