Cat Blog 8a

This is the first in a series of three blogs about helping feral families.

Helping feral families

This week I received an urgent request for advice from someone who had discovered a feral mom and her babies in her garden. The kind person wanted to help them but didn’t know how.

Making decisions about feral kittens can be tricky, so it’s important to know as much as possible about them.

Most shelters, if they have space, will only take kittens that are completely tame and young enough to be adopted. This usually means that the kittens shouldn’t be much older than 7 weeks. Some welfare organisations do indeed tame feral kittens, but they tend to take kittens younger than about 5 weeks. The reason for this is that one’s chances of taming kittens are reduced after 5 weeks. We’ve found that, at 6 weeks and older, not all feral kittens tame sufficiently to compete with tame kittens for good homes. If we place them in an adoption cage with tame kittens, they try to hide when prospective adoptive parents come to visit. We could therefore risk subjecting them to enormous stress without them finding homes.

Some older kittens can be tamed. However, the members of welfare organisations are often dealing with large numbers of cats and kittens in need. So they tend to spend their time, energy and funds on kittens that have the best chance of adoption.

We therefore tend to leave feral or semi-tame older kittens in their own environment. This is where they feel at home – even though it may not seem like an ideal environment to us. We then make sure as best we can that the kittens are fed and sterilised. (See Cat Blog 2a and 2b at https://iamcat.blog/feral-cats-and-how-to-help-them/.)

If the kittens are younger than 5 weeks, however, you might handle the situation differently. If someone could ‘foster’ the kittens with their mom until the kittens are weaned, they would have a much better chance of adoption. (More about this in the next Cat Blog.) NB: It is not a good idea to separate unweaned kittens from their mom. This is not only for their sake but also because the mom will look for them for days. She could also develop painful and potentially fatal mastitis.

Once the kittens have been weaned, the mom will need to be sterilised. You should then return her to her own area. If she was in good condition before going to the foster, she will not need additional feeding. If not, perhaps consider leaving food and water for her whenever you are in the area. Or you could arrange for someone to feed her more regularly. (See Cat Blog 2a and 2b for detailed info on helping feral families.)

If you realse that the kittens would be better off being left in their own environment, try to arrange for the entire family to be sterilised. The best time would be when the kittens are around 3 months old. This is the ‘magic window’ when the kittens will be old enough to be ‘done’ and the mom will not have had her next litter.(More about trapping in Cat Blog 4a at https://iamcat.blog/how-do-i-trap-community-cats-part-1/)

How do I judge feral kittens’ age?

In order to help feral families, we need to know how old the kittens are:

• If they’re not walking yet, they’re younger than 4 weeks.
• If they are beginning to walk in a wobbly way, they’re about 4 weeks old.
• If they’re running and climbing quite strongly but not really eating solids yet and are smaller than the kittens in pet shops and on chocolate boxes, they are about 5 weeks old.
• If they’re eating solids independently and are about the size of kittens in pet shops, they’re around 6 weeks old.

Cat quote of the week

Just watching my cats can make me happy.

Paula Cole

Did you know?

Cat Story 11

Revisiting the Waterfall Office Park colony

You might remember the very first story in the very first I am Cat Blog entitled ‘A colony in trouble’. The story was all about one of the groups of community cats in the Waterfall Office Park in Midrand, South Africa. The regular food sponsor could no longer donate food for the cats, and the caregivers were very concerned about their future wellbeing.

Well, today I have brilliant news. The truly remarkable Management and Directorate of this exceptional Office Park have taken over the feeding of the community cats themselves!

Yes, they will be supplying all the food for this colony in future, and their own employees will be doing the feeding! In fact, they had already begun feeding most of the community cats in the Park before we approached them about this particular group. They had also supplied wonderful bottom feeders of their own accord!

And there’s more. Not only is this one of the most attractive office parks I’ve ever seen – the well-maintained buildings interspersed with tranquil ponds – but they’re also environmentally friendly. They’ve been planting indigenous shrubs and trees, and even enticing bees to the Park. They also feed and protect the local population of Egyptian Geese – traffic signs reminding motorists to be mindful of the ducks.

In the years I’ve been involved with community cats, I’ve dealt with numerous centre managements. The Waterfall Office Park stands head and shoulders above all the rest.

Management and Directorate of the Waterfall Office Park, hats off to you!

Find out more about them at http://waterfallofficepark.co.za/.