Are Feral cats a major problem in the rural US?

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Im wondering something about the original post and many of the responses. The OP worded the question to specify rural areas. I grew up in a very rural area and there were no feral cat “problems” that we were not the cause of.....and eventually the solution to as well.

What I mean is I lived in farmland country for 20 years and never would say there was a generalized feral cat problem around where I was or around where any of our acquaintances were.

Now I live in an urban area and I would absolutely say there is a feral cat problem here. I’m curious if the OP is aware of this problem as well. There is a bigger cat problem in cities than the countryside I say.

When I moved here I had a nice stack of 22 rifles that could take shorts. Remington 572s and Winchester 270s. I no longer wanted so many 22 pumps so i started putting them up for sale. Without exception, the first question asked about them were how well they shot Shorts. It didn’t take a genius to know they planned to shoot something out of their back door and didn’t want to make any noise.

There is a pretty ridiculous cat problem in the cities here. There are entire non-profits set up that take donations and fund raise just to control the cat population. The Hilton Head/Bluffton area is worse yet than where I am at.
 
We’ve had 4 feral cats in the last couple of years. They’ll eventually settle down and become affectionate and 1 in particular became my buddy. We keep them in our barn and unfortunately coyotes and bobcáts have killed 3 of the 4.
 
We actually put 8 fairly feral cats on our farm. They were kittens from our house that the only time they can around was if you fed them, couldn’t pet them and went out of sight if they noticed you.

We had to trap them and they were a mess after the 1.5 hr trip, got in the back of a pickup before we opened the trap on the ground to let them out. Every now and then you would go into the barn and get on the tractor and the seat would already be warm, or riding around and catch a glimpse of one running off. No signs of them for more than a decade now or any other cats, except for bob cats.

Had one at the house get into the shipping container I keep my mower, while I was mowing. It must have hid out when I was done as I closed up. When I came back to mow the next week, it didn’t even attack me as I opened the door and it ran away. Never seen that one again. I can’t imagine being in one of those during the summer for an hour, much less a week.
 
OP- if you want to do that cat and other cats and people a favor, get the thing fixed and get it some shots, then put it in your house. Cats can be a problem OR a solution. At a NATO base in afg., the Italian medical unit would trap stray cats, "fix" them, cut of the tip of an ear to mark them, and release them back on the base. They would help keep the rodent population down, and wouldn't continue to breed. At a US base where I worked, the cats were "eliminated". As a result, there were rats EVERYWHERE. And they were big rats. And we all know how rats are capable of proliferating. But the fun didn't end there- the rats (which were obviously a disgusting health hazard on their own) were a food source for snakes. So now we have cobras hanging around. Living in sandbags, Hesco barriers, etc. Obviously, the preventive med guy (city fellow) on the base is pulling his hair out, worrying about his futile war with traps on rats, and no idea what he will do about the snake threat. I told him to have a local worker obtain some male cats, have the docs on the base "do the necessaries" to them, and them turn them lose on the base after. The worst thing that would happen is that it wouldn't work.
 
Meeks36 said:
They can be a huge problem. They kill everything small birds, squirrel, lizards, snakes, and chipmunks. And they kill for fun. Feral dogs are worse. But that's for a different post.
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Live near a college town. At the end of their final semester, many students can't take their pet cat with them, wherever they are going, after they graduate, so they "take them out, to the woods" (AKA "my place"), and leave them, (usually declawed) because they don't want to take them to the Animal Shelter. The declawed ones don't last long, and the ones which weren't de-clawed, usually weren't fixed, either. Every June, there is a new crop, of "throwaway pets", in the woods. They, unlike coyotes, can climb trees, so they quickly emerge, at the top of the food chain. In the process, dozens of indigenous species are threatened, if not wiped out, entirely.
 
whm1974 said:
So how do I tame a feral kitten? It has been a week since I started feeding it, and comes up to to me wanting to be petted and played with, it is really skittish around other people.
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It sounds like you are taming it. We have one that adopted us last year and lives in the house. They tend to be skittish but she can be super affectionate as well.
 
FL-NC said:
OP- if you want to do that cat and other cats and people a favor, get the thing fixed and get it some shots, then put it in your house. Cats can be a problem OR a solution. At a NATO base in afg., the Italian medical unit would trap stray cats, "fix" them, cut of the tip of an ear to mark them, and release them back on the base. They would help keep the rodent population down, and wouldn't continue to breed. At a US base where I worked, the cats were "eliminated". As a result, there were rats EVERYWHERE. And they were big rats. And we all know how rats are capable of proliferating. But the fun didn't end there- the rats (which were obviously a disgusting health hazard on their own) were a food source for snakes. So now we have cobras hanging around. Living in sandbags, Hesco barriers, etc. Obviously, the preventive med guy (city fellow) on the base is pulling his hair out, worrying about his futile war with traps on rats, and no idea what he will do about the snake threat. I told him to have a local worker obtain some male cats, have the docs on the base "do the necessaries" to them, and them turn them lose on the base after. The worst thing that would happen is that it wouldn't work.
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Certain dog breeds that are bred and trained to hunt rats might be better for the base as large rat colonies are not afraid of cats at all. All I can say about the Cobras are do something about the rats and have personal shoot those things with snakes for backup... I rather have the feral cats then rats and snakes. Per the lease I'm not supposed to have pets in my apartment... And my Apartment is a HUD funded SRO place so a cat litter box would just stick up the place...
 
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earlthegoat2 said:
Im wondering something about the original post and many of the responses. The OP worded the question to specify rural areas. I grew up in a very rural area and there were no feral cat “problems” that we were not the cause of.....and eventually the solution to as well.

What I mean is I lived in farmland country for 20 years and never would say there was a generalized feral cat problem around where I was or around where any of our acquaintances were.

Now I live in an urban area and I would absolutely say there is a feral cat problem here. I’m curious if the OP is aware of this problem as well. There is a bigger cat problem in cities than the countryside I say.

When I moved here I had a nice stack of 22 rifles that could take shorts. Remington 572s and Winchester 270s. I no longer wanted so many 22 pumps so i started putting them up for sale. Without exception, the first question asked about them were how well they shot Shorts. It didn’t take a genius to know they planned to shoot something out of their back door and didn’t want to make any noise.

There is a pretty ridiculous cat problem in the cities here. There are entire non-profits set up that take donations and fund raise just to control the cat population. The Hilton Head/Bluffton area is worse yet than where I am at.
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Actually I worded the Thread that way due to feral cats tendency to kill all the small native wild species just because they can... Urban areas, specially large ones tend to have major rat and pigeon problems.
 
whm1974 said:
Certain dog breeds that are bred and trained to hunt rats might be better for the base as large rat colonies are not afraid of cats at all. All I can say about the Cobras are do something about the rats and have personal shoot those things with snakes for backup... I rather have the feral cats then rats and snakes. Per the lease I'm not supposed to have pets in my apartment... And my Apartment is a HUD funded SRO place so a cat litter box would just stick up the place...
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You could always have the cat designated as an "emotional support animal".
 
Shanghai McCoy said:
It sounds like you are taming it. We have one that adopted us last year and lives in the house. They tend to be skittish but she can be super affectionate as well.
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Hehe, yeah we get adopted every few years. Our latest one brought home a pair of kittens a few weeks ago, first time Ive ever seen a male cat do that.
One of the new ones is kinda friendly, the other likes the dogs better than people.
 
LoonWulf said:
Hehe, yeah we get adopted every few years. Our latest one brought home a pair of kittens a few weeks ago, first time Ive ever seen a male cat do that.
One of the new ones is kinda friendly, the other likes the dogs better than people.
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I never even heard of a male grown cat bring kittens to their Humans before... Are they his?
 
whm1974 said:
I never even heard of a male grown cat bring kittens to their Humans before... Are they his?
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They sure look like him and his brother, dont know for sure. There arnt a ton of cats that come around our property, he does a decent job of keeping them away. Theres a bunch up the street tho, and they ALL look pretty similar.
 
Cats kill anything they come across for fun. They are a big part of the dissapearance of song bids and other enjoyable spiecies.
To me the only good cat is one served on a asian table.
 
We have six that we trapped and neutered. They just lay around waiting to be fed. We live in the woods, so Mice and Moles were a real problem. No longer. The former Feral's earn their keep. We actually had fourteen at one time, but they wander into the road and get squished or go into the woods to become predator food. I did have a problem with a large Tom Feral that got to a litter of kitten's before we got the Mother neutered. He killed them one by one. He wounded three other Cat's, one we had to put down. Enough. Ruger 10/22 time. One Stinger to the boiler room. My Wife likes the remaining six, we've had them for two years now. She's happy, I'm happy.
 
Terry G said:
We have six that we trapped and neutered. They just lay around waiting to be fed. We live in the woods, so Mice and Moles were a real problem. No longer. The former Feral's earn their keep. We actually had fourteen at one time, but they wander into the road and get squished or go into the woods to become predator food. I did have a problem with a large Tom Feral that got to a litter of kitten's before we got the Mother neutered. He killed them one by one. He wounded three other Cat's, one we had to put down. Enough. Ruger 10/22 time. One Stinger to the boiler room. My Wife likes the remaining six, we've had them for two years now. She's happy, I'm happy.
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So I see that Tomcats do behave toward kittens just like Male Lions do.... Or was it just this one? Or just feral tomcats do?
 
whm1974 said:
So I see that Tomcats do behave toward kittens just like Male Lions do.... Or was it just this one? Or just feral tomcats do?
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Yes Tom's will kill kitten's to get rid of potential competition. The Tom I mentioned was the only one that did. The deceased was attacking Females and Males alike, not just kittens. The Vet told my Wife that the Cat in question was a Murderer. It happens fairly often, just like Humans.
 
I had a feral cat that would stop by to challenge my Siamese. I would chase him off as much as possible. One night they got into it. Siamese one feral cat zero. I broke up the fight and brought my Siamese in for a health inspection. He had blood on him, but it wasn't his own. I could find no injury I kept him inside. Next time in the night when the feral cat would yowl to challenge my cat I went out with a flash light and a .22. He was like a deer in the headlights. Shot him and went back to bed. Buried him the next day. He was a pretty big cat.

I make my cat wear a bell. He doesn't hunt. Loves to lay in the sun. Otherwise he would stay inside. I don't like cats killing birds.

Tomcats will kill kittens.
 
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