Math: exponential growth of feral cat populations

[JohnRoberts]

One of my neighbor's too many cats (named Scooter) has adopted me and often hangs out in my carport waiting for me to pet him. I put out a water dish for him, but never food.

A year or two ago a stray kitten hung out in my carport crying for food. I did not feed it, and within two days it got the message and moved on. I have no interest in killing cats, but I would like to prevent more new ones from entering my immediate neighborhood. I already have overflow cats from my too kind neighbor's yard.

JR

 

[JohnRoberts]

Scooter just showed up... I hadn't seen him since yesterday and it was 28' outside last night... When my kind neighbor is out of town he has our other neighbor feed his cats. For some reason he doesn't ask me to do it. I just saw neighbor #3 over there feeding the cats and scooter came running across the yard to my car port. I suspect he may have been locked up in neighbor #2's laundry room over night. Back a couple months ago when we had some overnight temps down in the teens I offered Scooter shelter inside my laundry room and he declined. My laundry room isn't heated but better than outdoors. My small heated greenhouse inside that laundry room was down in the 50s last night. The weather forecast is calling for overnights in the 60s by mid week. Cats apparently can tolerate cold weather better than we can.

JR

 

[crazydoc]

I have styrofoam vaccine shipping containers (~18" cubes) I got from the vet that I cut 6" holes in one side and put on the deck - have to bungee cord them down so they don't blow away in the 50+MPH winds here. With night temps in the single digits the cats seem to do OK. The tops come off if you need to look for a litter , though these aren't appropriate for you if you don't want cats around. Of course they could eat at your neighbor's and have cold night sleepovers at your place.

 

[JohnRoberts]

Cats get a little territorial so my neighbor's too many cats expand onto my property trying to claim some personal space. Yesterday I chased a different tom cat (yellow, not scooter) off my car. My motor was warm from my once a week shopping trip. There are fresh muddy cat prints all over my car. :-(

My neighbor is a druggist so he may have access to the same shipping containers.

I have pulled back my mower cover because cats were sleeping under the cover during cold nights. I still need to clean up the cat puke (?) they left on my mower seat.

It was much worse when I had squirrels trying to set up house keeping in my attic.

JR

 

[Ó Draighnáin]

I have to admit that the I shoot possums and cats, if I can, when I see them in the scrub (both extremely destructive introduced animals that wreak havoc). The only native land mammal in NZ is a species (or perhaps two) of small bat. There are obviously seals, dolphins and whales in the oceans.

New Zealand used to be bird islands (look up the Moa and Haast Eagle if you have the time or inclination).

There are a great number of small native birds, like the fantail, that get killed by feral cats. Although likely impossible, feral cats should be (mercilessly) eradicated. They seem to start getting bigger after a few generations in the wild. There are estimated to be 2.5 million feral cats in NZ. I called the local council to see what they were doing and they said that their resources were spread too thin dealing with rabbits... Farmers are not worried about cats you see.

I am not a cat hater by the way, I like cats but probably do like dogs more. We have a cat, it is diabolical. It scratched my wife across the face a little while ago when she went to pat it. We blame it on a misspent youth (there was a lot of catnip growing around when it was young).

 

[JohnRoberts]

Curiosity and cats? I can now report a decline of my local feline population by 3** kittens.

Last week my neighbor with all the cats, went out of town to visit a young relatives HS graduation. He drove his ex-wife so she left her car parked in his driveway for two nights. Three very young kittens set up housekeeping in the warm engine compartment. She didn't discover the stowaways until she returned home. Conveniently she had a neighbor with two nursing moma cats so there was enough teats to support the new kittens.

My neighbor would like to figure out to make this happen again.

JR

** we ASSume it was only 3 kittens, that's how many were found in the car when she made it home. It was a litter from a stray momma cat, not one of my neighbors known females, but when you provide free food, strays tend to hang around.