It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
originally posted by: gottaknow
I love all animals. (There are some tiny, yippy dogs that test that love) I have 3 cats.
I will always feed a hungry animal if I am able.
However, I have learned that you feed a stray, that stray will come back for more and soon, you'll have another cat.
Simple as that. Definitely neuter them as others have said. Sometimes, they do it for free/low cost in various areas.
originally posted by: Advantage
No. Dont feed them. Trust me, they wont starve.
How do feral cats survive – find food, stay warm, etc? Many don’t survive. If they do survive, their lives aren’t easy without human caretakers. Females may become pregnant as young as 5 months of age and may have two to three litters a year. Being pregnant so young and so often, and having and nursing kittens, is even more stressful on female cats who are struggling to survive.
More than half of the kittens are likely to die without human intervention. Males who roam and fight to find mates and defend their territories may be injured and transmit diseases to one another through bite wounds. Feral cats may find food in a restaurant dumpster or someone may feed them. They may find shelter from the elements beneath a porch or in an abandoned building. But often they are without a reliable source of food or shelter.
originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
a reply to: SaturnFX
If anyone has a suggestion on how I could go about working to push my local municipality into adopting a spay/neuter program, i'd love to see a link or something. Seriously....we are stewards of the planet, and my town can do a hell of a lot better.
originally posted by: nOraKat
Sometime this summer a stray cat I used to feed gave birth to a litter of 4 kittens, they were like super-cute and now I feed the whole family. Actually the mom and one of the kittens disappeared after a few months.
Anyway, the 3 kittens are now pretty big, and they will be facing their first winter.
I saw one of the kittens one day stalking a pigeon. He got real close to it and the pigeon did not notice the cat at all. He could have pounced on it and caught it, but he looked unsure what to do once he got close. He kinda pounced toward it playfully, not really trying to catch it or eat it.
I thought to myself - he doesn't hunt the pigeon because he's not really that hungry. If the kitten were starving, he may have caught the pigeon and learned how to hunt, but these cats have no need to hunt because I feed them. I don't feed them that much, only once a day but probably enough.
To hunt a pigeon or other animal takes a lot of skill, and even knowing which parts to eat, how to eat it, how to tear it open, dealing with feathers and all that stuff. You probably have to develop your teeth to do that on a regular basis. Anyway, these cats probably never have an opportunity to learn all those things because they don't need to.
So what do you think? Is it bad to feed them because they become dependent on you and you take away their ability to sustain themselves? What happens if I move?
On the other hand, I see cats snooping around the trash so I figure a lot of these cats eat trash anyway and do not even hunt. In that case it is better to feed them?
And next year they will probably mate and give birth to more litters and my neighborhood will be full of more hungry stray cats which is prob not good..
What do you think?
originally posted by: nOraKat
Is it good or bad to feed stray cats?