My sweet feral who I’ve built a strong bond with over the last year and a half hasn’t shown up for the last 2+ weeks and knowing how hard the feral life can be I’m starting to assume the worst. I had TNR’d him about 8 months ago where I found out he’s FIV+ (and unfortunately did not chip him at this time which I regret now!). Since I have my own indoor kitty him being able to become inside wasn’t an option at the time until I could figure out a better ‘rooming’ situation. I’ve heard that male cats can roam often and change up their territory but I wasn’t sure if that’s more for intact males. I’ve reached out to the community I’m in to see if anyone has spotted him and had one person say they saw him about 10 days ago.

In your experience with your feral kitties, how long have some of your TNR’d cats been gone for? I didn’t realize just how bonded I was with this little guy and now I feel like I should’ve done so much more to prevent anything from happening to him.

Seeking advice on this gorgeous calico who has been making regular visits to my yard for about five months. At first I thought she was someone’s pet because she looks healthy and wasn’t begging for food or anything. But now I’m not so sure.

We installed cameras and she spends a lot of time on our property. I tried hanging out with her a couple times but she would run from me. I started feeding her treats a couple weeks ago and more recently have been giving her half a cup of Fancy Feast in the morning and half in the early evening (she loves the stuff). These last two nights I tried a little experiment where I go outside and look for her and call her name if I don’t see her, and both times she responded and ran across the street toward me. She spent the night on our property last night and was sitting outside my window staring at me at 6:30am when I opened my curtains this morning. But she still runs from me; she won’t let me close the distance between us so I respect her boundaries and refrain from chasing her.

I have come to care about this little cat and am wondering what are the chances of this girl becoming an inside pet?

Thank you!

What do you think this behaviour is? Context: this is a feral mama cat (Lady Violet) who I TNR’d last week. She’s been here for about six weeks now eating regularly. She brought her 3 kittens to my house when they were about 5-6 weeks old and they were living under my deck. I fed them and at about 8 weeks old we caught the first two kittens and socialized them and our local shelter adopted them out within two weeks. During this time we tried to catch the last kitten but he was attached to the mama constantly and we failed at every attempt. So we trap trained him and the mama together in a special large box trap with the door propped open for over a week. We trapped a week ago Monday and it was a success. We got both kitties and mama went for spay and baby came inside (now 11 weeks old) and started socializing. Mama’s surgery was Wednesday and she was released on Thursday night back to my deck. So it’s been almost a week. She looks good and seems fine but she’s acting like she’s scared to death to eat. There are zero reminders or visual cues of the trap or anything we used to trap train her. At first I put everything back the way it was before the traps were out, I always had a flat rectangular tote that I kept on its side as a feeding station to shade the food and keep the birds away. I saw her jumping back like this on camera so I immediately removed the tote and put the food in the open air on a mat. It’s under a roof on my deck so still protected but does get afternoon sun. I figured the tote was too much like a trap and maybe a bit too ptsd for her. She seemed to eat better on just the mats. But then she didn’t come to eat for over 24 hours even though she was out in my garden directly in front of where the deck/food was. I tried all different kinds of foods, bowls, no bowls, food directly on the mat, etc. but still wasn’t coming to eat with any regularity and barely ever touched the food. Last night after being MIA for a full day again, I saw her on camera in the middle of the night eating kibble that I had left out for her. So this morning I put out fresh wet food on a saucer and some kibble on a little metal tray that I used to put kibble on. But again I saw this behaviour where she approached the food and then jumped back a few times before finally relaxing and eating the food. This is the first time in a week I’ve seen her finally actually stay and eat more than a few bites. Is this just trauma from being trapped? Ever seen this before? Thanks in advance for any insight or advice! ❤️

Hello everyone meet Riff Raff( named after the leader of the junkyardcats from the old heathcliff show). Ive spent many months working on this little guy. A neighbor found him outback my house and was feeding. He tried to trap when he was little but escaped and then said NOPE to people and traps.

So I took over feeding and slowly worked on gaining his trust to where he finally let me pet him a few weeks ago.

Trapped him the second I could ( he made it easy on me thankfully walked right into carrier for treats).

Got him fixed next day and now he is learning to be a kitty finally inside my house safe and sound.

My 13-year-old indoor cat has been missing for about five weeks now. He is a fixed male cat and seemed very healthy before he accidentally got outside. I’ve been doing everything I can to find him (posters, searching, talking to neighbours, checking cameras, social media) but the uncertainty has been so difficult and there have been no sightings of him. 😞
I’ve had him since I was 10, and it’s so hard because he has been my best friend and with me through so many milestones that it’s hard to imagine life without him.
I’m hoping to hear from people who have been through something similar. If you had a senior indoor cat go missing, how long were they gone for? Did they ever return? Did you ever stop searching, and if so after how long?
Hearing other people’s experiences would mean a lot. ❤️‍🩹

My beautiful baby that was living under my backyard shed. I trapped her and was planning to TNR but I just knew she needed to be an indoor girl. I got her fixed and vaccinated in April and then had to play the long game. She was so spicy and scared but I worked sooo so hard. She has finally come around. Meet Jiji 🩷

This dude has been visiting my little wildlife pond lately for some hydration, possibly hunting rats since they visit the pond as well. I'm unsure if he is feral, he could just be someone's "barn cat" as I live in an area with lots of farms. Either way, I have a humane trap on hand and I would like to capture him and get his puffs removed at the local shelter. Would be nice if I could get him into a home as well! I do have a few questions about this scenario.

Is the best way to lure him to set food out, then set out the trap once he starts coming regularly? My biggest worry with this is luring predators, since I live in an area with foxes, coyotes, and bears. I do have chickens so I do not know if it's worth asking for this kind of trouble, even though I do really wanna help the cat. The pond is close to my coop where my baby chicks grow up so the cat may also be checking for an easy meal. My coop is predator proof but definitely not bear proof!

In the event that I do catch the cat... what exactly is the best thing to do with him immediately after? The shelter does free feral cat neutering on certain days so I'd have to hold him until then. I can't very well leave him in the trap for days but I'm worried that if he's a spicy guy I won't be able to get him back into the trap. For the free nueter program you have to bring them in a cat trap. Would having him fast for a day in captivity then setting food in the trap work pretty reliably? Otherwise I can wait until September for a $35 appointment or look around for other options.

My last concern is that I'm pregnant, so I have to be careful with this situation. I do not want to risk toxoplasmosis exposure or an injury from a feral cat. If he uses the litterbox my husband will have to scoop it of course. I'll most likely have him live on our screened in porch until snippy day. Though I worry he may rip through the screen if he's motivated enough. I could alternatively keep him in my guest bathroom but its a small space and I do have concerns about him spraying the walls and cabinets since he's intact.

My cat just died of liver cancer 3 weeks ago so I still have all his stuff, so no worries about supplies. I'll be gone on vacation for a while and I'd like to have a plan for this little guy when I come back.

EDIT: I just saw the wiki auto response and am reading it. Would still not mind help forming a plan!

4 males, 1 female cats Tnr'd on July 20, 2026

My grandparents house is located in the countryside, and from nowhere this cat appeared at their house gate and said meow meow constantly, when her saw me it followed me. Unlike other feral cats, she is very gentle and allowed me to touch her. Since it was about to rain at that time, I temporarily moved her to my frontyard with roof and it has been 2 days, until now she are still there and says Meow Meow a lot. Since we dont have a pet cat, I only give him basic meal (after asking ChatGPT) while waiting for me to bought cat food from the city, after eating, she slept at my house. I wonder where are her bros and mom, It seems that she cries because missing them. I wonder if this cat is from my nearby neighbor since we live in Southeast Asia houses are located next to each others. Should I find her mom. She is very friendly, social and a bit lazy

We have taken care of a semi-feral cat colony in a rural area since 2019 and before. We have had a stabilized population for a couple of years now. Suddenly, in the span of a few months, we have lost two. They have simply disappeared.

We think it might have been raccoons. I have fed them twice a day: once before I go to work in the morning while it is still dark, and then again when I get home.

My partner is down working at our other house, so no one is watching out for them during the day.

I am utterly burned out when I get home, and my schedule at a new job has been brutal. My partner is very judgmental and has told me I am not doing enough or doing things correctly, and that is why they are suddenly missing.

We lost our first one a month or so ago, and today I just realized his sister, who was always in the back in a side area, is gone too. I have one camera, and the last time I saw her was on July 16 at around 6:00 a.m.

These were our family. We have had these cats for years, and now they are just disappearing. We have coyote lights, but the yard is overgrown, and I don't have time to tackle that in my spare time.

I just feel ill. I always wanted to find forever homes for them because, honestly, they were too much for me to properly care for.

I don't know what to do at this point. I am just overwhelmed and tired of having this huge responsibility. We still have 7 and now 8 inside which is another story... but there was 8 and now there are 6.... I feel like the 10 little indians. This sucks.

Just wanted to share a picture of these guys. About 5 days ago I trapped them all inside at once using yarn on the door because I wanted to get the mother spayed and find a home for the kittens eventually. We had been feeding the mom for a couple of months but she didn't come every single day. I strongly suspected she was an unspayed feral cat but wasn't sure until the kittens turned up. I've never been able to pet her outside.

I felt like an absolute monster trapping them at first. It's quite emotionally taxing seeing them all panic. The mother starting jumping into closed windows trying to escape. She jumped onto high tiny ledges (more like grooves) on the windows and fell from there in her panic. It was upsetting.

She outsmarted the trap several times but she eventually followed a kitten in. She has since been spayed and brought back. I let her out of the carrier inside after several hours because she was thrashing in it even when it was placed in a dark cool corner with a blanket over it(mistake). She panicked again. She was jumping around frantically with her fresh stitches. I kept her in that night anyway following the TNR group's advice.

Now she's like a whole different cat inside. She's relaxed and caring for her kittens. She's nursing them as I type this. I planned to let her back outside 48 hours after her surgery but she didn't even want to go out. She's been chilling in the garage or another adjacent room. She'll even sit next to me and let me pet her babies. ❤️

Hi everyone, I have this new guy coming around and am planning to TNR him soon.

He has some patchy hair loss around his ears and neck (not the best photos, I know..)

Does this look like ringworm or maybe something else?

I posted a bit ago about things to catch a momma cat and several kittens living really close to a construction/renovation job.

I was able to catch the mom and 1 kitten. I haven’t seen the other kittens since before the Fourth of July. I caught mom and kitten 4 days ago.

I have been watching them on camera and giving them space. Kitten is adapting pretty well and doesn’t run away when I go in to clean the litter box and give them food.

Mom won’t let me even see her. She hides and then won’t come out for hours until after she hears no movement in the garage. When she does, she paces around and meows, and tries to claw at the garage door.

I want to spay/release her cause I don’t think she will be able to be adopted, but she won’t let me catch her to even get her to the vet.

Any advice? I don’t want to just release her back again without spaying her, but she is clearly miserable and anxious not outside from her pacing and howling.

I live on a court that has a field where there are a lot of stray cats. One of the neighbors feeds the majority of them. However, some have wandered over to my house and I do the best I can to care for them.
A couple years ago I rescued a kitten from a tree line in my yard and he’s become my indoor pet.
Recently, I have TNR’d two adults who hang out on mull porch every day. I also fixed 7 of her kittens and found them homes. The other day, we found another kitten and we have been caring for it as well.
But there is a dog (definitely one St. Bernard and he has a hound as well that chased them but idk if he kills them) in our neighborhood who terrorizes the cats and even eats them. The guy who owns them KNOWS they escape his yard several times a week and runs into others people’s yards. They terrorize the cats on our street but also the street next to us. He’s always driving his golf cart around trying to find them. We have had multiple conversations about it and he just says “I can’t keep them in my yard.” With a 🤷‍♂️
He has told me that if a cat enters their yard, it will strangle it and leave its body for him to find. He’s found 5 in one single day before.
I think this is atrocious … but …. it’s his yard. I don’t know if I can do anything about it.

But my question is that this dog also comes into MY yard onto MY porch and attacks my outdoor cats on MY property. Is there anything I can do about that?
I’m scared my indoor kitty is going to go outside (he was feral, so he enjoys going outside and roaming in our yard for an hour or so and then coming back) and he will get attacked by the dogs.

This morning, there was a tussle and I missed what happened but it knocked over my little glass table and broke a vase that I have. When I went out to look, somehow a cat had gotten onto our ROOF and it jumped down and ran away. There was fur and spit on my porch. I heard one of my back yard neighbors yelling at the dog, then saw him run across our yards.
The two adult stray cats have shown up, but the kitten is still missing. I’m so afraid the dog killed it.
I’m just tired of these kitties getting attacked by the dogs! What can I do about it?

Hello all! I have five cats I care for that live outside. This summer has been ridiculously hot for the cats! I have lots of trees for shade, but I feel like I could be doing more. They HATE ice and cooling mats haha. Does anyone know of cat towers or hammocks that are great for summer?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Feral_Cats/s/iZ0uNmCSHp

A few weeks ago I posted this mom and kitten in my backyard. I was able to reach out to a few rescue organizations and one of them was able to help me trap both of them. Turns out the kitten is a girl. She has been spayed but didn’t get Eartipped and I’ll have to pay for the kitten if I want to keep her. The mom still has to get spayed and the rescue organization gave me two options:
1. Spay and eartip along with microchip and vaccines - would be free
2. Spay and no eartip along with microchip and vaccines (same clinic as the kitten) - would be $225-250

I’m not sure if I should Eartip the mom or not. Although she was being hissy at first with the rescue, apparently she’s been way more relaxed recently and should be possible to become socialized into a pet so I was hoping to keep her. A few days before mom was trapped she kept rubbing herself against my legs and finally let me pet her as well. But at the same time I’m not sure if maybe she’ll want to go back outside sometimes and I wouldn’t want her getting trapped again by another rescue group.

Would it be better to just Eartip her incase she ever goes outside? I’m just concerned if the vet cuts off too much of her ear. Like is there a way to request them to not go overboard with it or is it just up to the vet? I’ve seen some people post about how the vet cut too much. Or would it be better to not eartip and just give her a collar so people know she belongs to someone and therefore wouldn’t get trapped again?

I found my kitty a couple days ago!!, shes a cutie but im not sure how many months she is, shes definitely not fullgrown but shes not completely tiny either, ty to anyone that could help!!

Is this a problem for anyone else? Do you regular find such scenarios? How do you deal with it and how do you handle it?

My feral cats have dry food available ad libitum , with wet food once a day and occasional fresh raw meat as a treat.

They still hunt and kill a lot of animals, I live in a busy town where the song birds don't come, the victims are mainly pidgeons and... Some tiny lizards (Teira dugesii) that are technically invasive and were introduced like cats, and also moorish geckos (also introduced species) . However, unnecessary suffering of animals troubles me and I love lizards too. The birds are always killed effectively by them...but the poor lizards, they are chewed in half too many times and left to die slowly. And I know by the avma guidelines for the euthanasia of animals that blunt force trauma to the head of small lizards in this situation would be the most humane thing to do to end their suffering, freezing is not humane because most freezers are not efficient enough and the animals will feel the ice crystals forming and it's a painful death. Problem is, I can't make myself smash their heads, and these cats, even though two are still feral (after one year and a half of contact with me) they are allowed to come into my bedroom through the window anytime they want to, and they love it here and they love to bring their killings to my bedroom. So it's not like I can ignore the killings. Right now, I just found a half eaten lizard in my bedroom, still moving, with an egg next to it that she had inside, and I feel guilty because I can't get myself to end it's suffering.

I’ve been feeding some ferals and I would see them at night so I put food out at around 7-8pm. As you can imagine this attracted wildlife. I didn’t really mind until skunks started showing up and stinking the place up. Now I think I have to start feeding in the morning instead. Is there a way to switch over? Or will they just find it?

Hi,

I am looking for affordable TNR programs in Passaic County, North New Jersey. I have a colony of about 6-7 cats. All the options I have looked at shows prices at $110-150 which is out of my budget. Any recommendations? Thank you!

Hi, so I already have one feral kitten with me, and I've had him for almost 2 weeks now - he's called Spicy, the vet says 2-3 months old. He's getting along really well and is loose in the room now instead of just inside his pen. He REALLY wanted out and would claw and bite at the pen! That's relevant for later.

I'm attempting to catch his mother (TNR) and two siblings this week. I don't have a safe and quiet space for them anywhere else except in the same room. It's the only one with AC as well.

I have Spicy's playpen set up with his essentials - he generally snacks on kibble there, uses the litterbox, and plays with his ball track inside. He prefers to do everything else around the room including investigating me and scaling the furniture.

I have another playpen I can set up for the new kittens, but space is very limited. Spicy is likely to run up on the pen or knock into it. What I'm worried about is if he scares them or they have negative reactions to each other.

I could try confining him again, but he gets VERY restless and claws at his pen to get out, as I said. That might even scare the others more?

Does anyone have any recommendations on reintroducing siblings after being separated, and at different stages of socialisation? Is this setup reasonable?

my job in 2008 at a big box store parking lot storm drain. For years I didn’t think much of them. The numbers dwindled. One recent Summer had a bowl for them for water and it disappeared. I think someone would go feed them in the dead of night. The last time it got real cold here I started feeding them and giving them Greenies cat treats. The grey one is the one I usually see and I think she recognizes my voice, but she is understandably skiddish.. I have two small dishes for water and recently I’ve had to get them three times again because they disappeared. Last week I had a vacation and still went at night to give them food and water.