Ferals

Thw Wild Bunch!

These are cats which have been born in the wild and have had lit­tle or no con­tact with human beings, and con­se­quently live pri­vate lives, usu­ally within a group of like-minded cats, and are as wild as the heather.
Occa­sion­ally they might latch on to some­body who has left food out for them (a lot eas­ier than hunt­ing for the mea­gre wildlife they might come across), and this is fine while that food is being offered, but if some­thing hap­pens to that ‘feeder’, and the food no longer appears, they’ll try to obtain it from else­where and cause a nui­sance.
We’re often con­tacted at this point and are asked to take them in, and we now have around 60 res­i­dent feral cats!
Our pol­icy now is to trap, neuter and return to where they came from — most shel­ters are doing this now owing to the num­bers of fer­als involved. To remove them from their home place and incar­cer­ate them for the rest of their lives is extremely unfair to them, plus there’s the after-effects of caus­ing a vac­uum which just attracts more fer­als into the area.
Be aware that it’s ille­gal to remove a feral cat from its loca­tion and ‘dump’ it some­where else. Not only might it cause a new nui­sance, it’s also an offence to do this — it’s classed as ‘aban­don­ment’ as it removes the ani­mal from its shel­ter and food source.

We are happy to lend out cat traps to those who have a feral prob­lem, but we won’t lend out traps for the pur­pose of killing. We expect a guar­an­tee that the cat will be taken to the vet, neutered, and returned from whence it came. We can often help with the cost of this, though if you’re in a Cat Pro­tec­tion area you can often obtain pay­ment vouch­ers to give to the vet.

We are happy to take in preg­nant fer­als pro­vid­ing they can be neutered and returned to their base once the kit­tens are weaned.

Con­tact us for more infor­ma­tion if necessary.

Feral Kit­tens

Kit­tens are always cute to watch, and feral babies are no dif­fer­ent. There is,   how­ever, a def­i­nite win­dow of oppor­tu­nity when they must be removed from their moth­ers so that they can be socialised to be rehomed as pets. Although we hate doing it, the kit­tens must be taken away from their moth­ers before they reach 8 weeks of age, ear­lier if pos­si­ble. The older they are the more dif­fi­cult it is. If you see feral kit­tens please con­tact us as soon as possible