Catching up on feral cats

I've been lax about posting about the actual cat-catching I've been up to. A tiger cat began appearing on Molly's bed both day and night a few weeks ago. I was sure he would turn out to be tame (what feral cat camps out on a cushy dog bed 10 feet from a front door when there is a big barn to hide in?) but he doesn't have a tame whisker on him. He has been neutered, vaccinated and tested at my vet and I'll release him here in my barn once I'm sure the weather won't drop to zero.



Hopefully he and Bullet will work out any differences with hisses rather than bloodshed.

I've noticed a few strange cats down at the Fast Food Ferals feeding station, and I also got a call about cats being fed at a business across the highway, so Sunday I headed down, met with the feeder (a man), caught two cats at his location, and two at mine. The Tompkins County SPCA was able to fit in all four. I know there are a few more FFFerals, and at least three more at the new business location, and probably a few we haven't seen, so that will keep me busy for a few weeks. The one nice thing about catching cats in Tompkins is that (at least in winter) there are free/affordable spay/neuter options that are fairly easy to get into. There are options in Tioga as well, but the gap between the cost for spay/neuter clinic surgery and surgery at my private vet is so little, I take them to my private vet to leave the limited spaces at the s/n clinic for residents.



If I'm lucky, the three I'm keeping will all be males, so they can be returned ASAP. One of the male is handleable, so I'm having him FeLV/FIV tested. If he's negative, I may keep him to find him a home. Four caught, two off the street. That would be nice.

This is one World Spay Day (formerly Spay Day USA) when I'll actually get a bunch of cats fixed!