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Domestic matters

So, we already have too many cats as a result of one semi-feral cat not being done in time.

But we did then have her and her four daughters done. So, while too many, not increasing in number.

Until about 4 am this morning, when another semi-feral that we\’d seen around for a couple of weeks announced her presence on the top of our wardrobe.

With her three new kittens.

Sigh.

I simply won\’t drown them nor ask anyone else to. And do you know how difficult it is to give away kittens in rural Portugal?

Yes, quite, you can\’t.

Sigh.

15 thoughts on “Domestic matters”

  1. Don’t they have animal shelters/adoption centers there? How about pet supply stores? Here, they have adoption weekends.

  2. Isn’t there a humane society in Portugal? If this cat is only semi feral, it should be quite easy to make here kittens quite sociable. Then they could go for adoption at a city shelter, once they have been fixed.

  3. You let the market sort itself out. If there is spare food the cats flourish. If not they don’t.
    If the cats flourish the local villagers shoot you.

  4. Pat’s nailed it, really. If you won’t kill ’em and you won’t let ’em starve, then you have no option but to look on the bright side. You are of course going to have to nip any incipient cat explosion in the bud by spaying the female kittens in the new batch and being more aggressive about shooing away recent feral visitors.

    It’s a bit like illegal immigrants (I’ll catch hell for this but the comparison is apposite). You can do your damnedest to keep them out but once they get here they have to be treated humanely.

    Julia. lim n+1/n, n → ∞ = 1 so we were in diminishing returns a long while ago.

  5. The best helpful suggestion I can come up with- get a large active Tom, have him vasectomised (not neutered), let him do his thing with the local females- and keep other toms out of the territory.

  6. MikeinAppalachia

    Pat’s solution does work pretty well-has to be a pretty large Tom for best results.

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