To ask you to stop feeding ‘stray’ cats

[Notopel]

Just started Saturday morning off clearing cat sick off the carpet. And it’s because once again the fat, very well fed cat has been fed at another house. He can’t eat generic cat food and needs grain free specialist food.

I’ve bought him numerous ‘do not feed’ tags for a collar which have all ended up in a tree somewhere, I imagine.

If you do think you’ve got a hungry stray on your hands, then please take them to a cat rescue instead. But in reality your hungry stray is often just someone else’s greedy cat.

And before anyone suggests I keep him in, he’s a rescue cat who we adopted at 7 years old. He’s used to being outside and we have a huge natural valley on the doorstep (ideal environment for cats to roam).

I agree op. We get loads of cats in our garden where the previous owners would feed them, but i know they all have homes and are well fed!

But in reality your hungry stray is often just someone else’s greedy cat.

Exactly, most cats are chancers, six dinner sid types, and will take an opportunity to play the starving neglected animal. We have posts about them every few weeks on our local facebook page, it drives me bonkers and always follows the same script.

OP - Does anyone know anything about this cat, it keeps coming into my house for food, it must be a stray as it's starving. No it's just a greedy bastard who likes food

Replies - Aww hun it's well cute, if it needs a home i'll adopt it. No you mean you'll steal a persons pet

I think people who feed cats just want a cat but not the vets bills.

Depends where you live. In our village, they really are emaciated strays.

So far our neighbour has caught and homed 2 and is working on a third. We are debating getting a cat trap.

There are some cats that are genuinely starving though and feeding them can be life saving. Ask thecatneuterer on here, who works with rescues.

It is your responsibility to ensure your cat eats the diet it needs, it could be eating anything it finds while out, not necessarily what it is being given - cats will enter another cats house and steal!
I've dealt with several cats over the years that had been ignored 'because someone will own it' when they didn't, and those cats were suffering terribly. There are thousands of stray and feral cats in this country that do need help. Telling people not to feed a cat they are concerned about won't help, and I don't know a single rescue with space to just take them in, the reality is that these cats would be left if individuals dont help.

@Annamagnani, cat traps make it much easier, they aren't too expensive but can make a massive difference in helping to get the situation under control.

To be fair though OP, if he's a greedy bugger he's probably catching stuff and eating it as well. If he's not used to it, it could make him sick too 🤢. It's hairball season so lots of grooming will help.

Oh, and shave "sod off, he's MY cat" in to the fur on his back.

Joking. I think.

It's so frustrating! I have a greedy cat who is always starving. 🙄 so people feed him.

There's always reports on our local lost and found cat Facebook group about "starving" cats in peoples gardens. Usually they look very well fed!

I had what I thought might be a stray turn up. Matted fur, missing fur, raggedy looking thing. I monitored him for a while and then gave him dreamies to tempt him to me and took him to the vet to check him out, he was fine. I then put a collar on him with my number on and his owner phoned. So I left him be, didn't feed him again.

Is your cat microchipped? Genuinely concerned people will check at vets if they think they have a stray.

Paper collars are easily replaced. Is it the tag or the whole collar going missing? I’m thinking the whole collar but if not then you may be able to get a collar marked up with do not feed -

Do you have local FB community pages? Add a post with pictures explaining your cat has a medical condition, is loved and looked after but has a six dinners Sid attitude that is affecting his health so please dont feed if you see him.

We had a cat that came visiting. It sat outside our door for an hour in pelting rain. Eventually we let it in, dried it off etc. We popped a spare collar on it with a rolled up note attached to say “is this your cat” etc.
Cat kept coming back for a coup,e of days without the collar then reappeared with a new note saying “yes this is our cat we live at xx on xx road”, 4 doors down basically.
I love cats, but my lord they are arseholes 😂🤣

I would love to shave him!! He’s some kind of Ginger long-haired breed that looks like a Maine-Coon. He’s half cat/Half lion 🦁

He’s microchipped, so easily identified if someone did take him to the vet.

And yes, he does eat everything in sight when out and about. We even had a seagull once. Feathers all over the garden. But, it always seems to be generic tinned type cat food chunks whenever he’s sick at home. Which makes me think the culprits are the cat feeders.

If anyone did actually want to adopt him I’d bite their hand off. We’re allergic to his fur and he’s cost me a load of vet bills for teeth removal (£500!!). £20 a month cat insurance which excludes any injuries to his back legs as he miraculously went lame in the rescue kennels (and never again repeated this trick thereafter). Oh, and specialist grain free food because he’s intolerant to generic cat food. But we adopted him, so see it like a life sentence now 😉

Other people feeding my cat were part of the reason he had to be put to sleep. He was on special food to prevent bladder crystals forming. They came back and couldn't be controlled no matter what we did. He was also getting fatter despite diet being well controlled at home. vet reckoned that he must have been fed. He got so ill the only choice left was to PtS.

There's a missing cat in my area and at the time I thought I spotted it in my garden. I contacted Cat's Protection and they said to put food out to encourage it to hang around so could eventually be caught and returned. This doesn't sit right with me. There have been slugs and wasps in it and passing seagulls scoffing it. It's gone in the morning but couldn't say which cat, or fox is eating it. The missing cat still hasn't been found.

I’ve done this the past but only with cats I knew without a doubt weren’t being fed.

If he's a greedy cat, I wonder if he goes through another person's cat flap?
It happened with my old cat a few years back.

I don't know anyone that feeds 'stray' cats or would even consider it - it's common sense to take them to the vet if you think they're stray.

In the UK I agree with this, however in many countries the stray cats are pretty clearly strays and are starving. We feed three strays and they now have made their home in the car park of our building. They were so skinny and sad when they turned up and are now looking 1000 times better and healthier and one even lets you stroke it, although is still very nervous. I'm happy to give them some food and water and a slightly better life.

I was thinking he might b getting into another cats home to steal their food, nothing tastes as good as stolen food.

In that bbc study secret life of cats a lot of people had interlopers coming in, only one was stray and a lady adopted him when she found she was feeding him anyway.

My cats now hang round the neighbours garden because he put food out for strays and they are furious

He's probably getting in to other people's houses and stealing more timid cats' food.

I had a cat once with a whole street of owners. I found out after a few years that they all thought she was a stray and they all adopted her and fed her. She was a small kitteny looking thing and quite slim. I guess she was skinny because she'd overeat at everyone's houses then go away and puke (had the vet check her when she puked regularly at home. No problems found)
Turns out, various families had all named her. Luckily none kept her in overnight. That's always when she came home without fail to stay and I was none the wiser. It wasn't til a neighbour saw me pick her up and take her in one day and the neighbour challenged me. I had to explain that I owned her, paid her vets bills, had her spayed and chipped years before I even moved there and that she was indeed my well fed property. My well fed, albeit entirely disloyal property.

Years later I did feed stray cats. I'd moved to a farm and another tenant had started with a bunch of cats but didn't neuter them. He lived in a house of shit (the kind you see on those tv programs that make your skin crawl) so his handful of cats a decade ago had grown into a huge feral colony. With the help of the cats protection league I trapped them and had them neutered. It took years. Every evening I'd open my back door to a dozen or more meowing cats clambering for food. Almost all feral to begin with. Eventually I tamed a few. All the kittens would be trapped, tamed, treated and rehomed for a donation of cat food or money towards their flea, worm and antibiotic treatments. It took 7 years to get the colony down to just one wiley trap shy un-spayed mama cat. The rest were neutered and as the years went by, the ones that were killed on the road stopped being replaced by a litter more cats and the colony dwindled naturally.

If you want to "help poor stray kitties" don't do it with ones who live on your street and come to you for visits. Donate to the CPL or go do some helping out on farm cat colonies.

He’s probably stealing food from other cats, catching animals and / or eating from bins, left out food. Precious cat owners who think ppl are intent on stealing their pets make me - I’ve had two random cats come through open windows in last month, believe me I do not want to encourage someone’s manky cat to be in my house by feeding them.

Put a collar, temporarily, if you don’t like them saying ‘ do not feed’

I agree with you a bit, I have a chubster six dinner Sid cat, he needs to lose weight and I’ve got him on a diet, but he is obviously being fed elsewhere, you’ve gotta wonder why anyone would think he needs feeding, but they do.

But overall I agree with pp That there are plenty of stray cats around that would starve if people did not feed, so maybe use discernment and try to locate owner with paper collar instead of just mindlessly feeding.

Yeah I'm fed up of seeing local cats around the area posted as "cat found" on the neighbourhood facebook page. They are clearly well fed and some even have collars!

Are you sure it’s someone feeding him and not him going into other houses and stealing food? My neighbour was telling my mum how her cat was on special diet food as he was so fat and it wasn’t working and my mum had to tell her he comes in our catflap and steals food all the time

The cats where I live wouldn’t give anyone else the time of day. They love my suntrap garden, one in particular arrives and miaows for his friend to come join him but I wouldn’t give them food. Thankfully they don’t shit on my lawn.