Stray Cat Keeps Coming in - What Would You do?

[Mikocat]

Hello ladies.

We have had a little stray cat breaking in through our cat flap and stealing food for the last few weeks. At first we thought he (very obviously a he - and in need of neutering IMO) was just being opportunistic, but it is becoming apparent that he is a stray.

After a few weeks he is starting to look a bit tatty, he has been fighting and has scratches on his nose and bent ears :-(

We put a paper collar on him and got a call from a neighbour saying that she too has had him breaking in through her cat flap and stealing her cats' food. No other calls though.

DH took him to the vets to see if he was chipped, he isn't, but the vet said that he was in good health and about 9 months old. She said that we should keep him away from sources of food so that he would go home.

I'd consider getting him neutered and keeping him but my two cats HATE him and the smaller one gets quite distressed when Young Cat (as we have taken to calling him) tries to play, my cat is obviously very frightened.

The question is what to do next? We've made some posters which I plan to stick up locally, but I don't hold out much hope. To me it seems like he has been abandoned. I don't really buy the vet's theory that if we don't feed him he will go home either. We had stopped leaving food down overnight/when we went out but recently we've been feeding Young Cat and letting him stay in (at least until our cats get distressed) as it is VERY cold out.

My neighbour claims to have rung the RSPCA but that they said they were too full to take him!

At this point I can only see two options; let him starve or take in a cat that could potentially drive my cats to running away.

Does anyone have any suggestions? We are in Leeds if anyone knows anywhere locally that might take him.

p.s. He is a cute little cat.

Best long term solution for your own cats :
www.sureflap.co.uk/products/details/1-microchip-cat-flap

For the stray : He'll adopt a house that will let him move in.
If he's young and not neutered he'll happily roam miles till he finds it.

Best long term solution for your own cats :
www.sureflap.co.uk/products/details/1-microchip-cat-flap

For the stray : He'll adopt a house that will let him move in.
If he's young and not neutered he'll happily roam miles till he finds it.

W have the sureflap cat flap and it is brilliant. The vile ginger tom from down the road used to come in our kitchen, fight with our cat, and spray. Now he can't get in (though he does try).

I do plan to get one of the microchip cat flaps when we move, but we are planning to sell the house so don't really want to go down that route yet.

I guess I'm just a big sucker, I feel morally obliged to help the poor thing.

get it now
then when you sell put the cheap one back in
its just two screws
we have our old one in the shed as a spare

also bear in mind that cats are meanies on suckers
my old cat we KNEW was getting breakfast at four houses
one lady down the road was about to take him to the vet but was told to come to our house
cat look SOOOOOO hacked that he'd been busted when DH showed her him sat on the sofa!

Look up your local cat's protection - I've done that for a stray tom that was hanging about for weeks and weeks getting thinner and scruffier. They asked me to let then know the next time he was about and then came to collect him.

My mum gets this quite a lot, they have about 6 cats, every so often when they let them all in there's an extra one. You could adopt him, but he and your cats will have to fight it out before they establish their pecking order.

I'm currently feeding a neighbours cat
another local cat (UNBELIEVABLY CUTE boy 8 month old neutered) is clearly shut out whenever his owners are at work
he is in neighbours house more than their cat is
tonight I had to bribe him with a handful of crunchies to kick him out into the cold
am almost tempted to let our catflap "learn" him - except that our boy cat hates him !!
feline politics are a nightmare :-)

Well we started with two cats and ended up with four when I was little, no it wasn't the feline waltons but it worked. They mostly ignored each other.

Once he is neutered he would calm down after 2-3 weeks. It sounds like he is fighting ang getting ripped to shreds.

Don't forget un-neutered males don't live long, 18months from what I have read on the CPL site because they roam onto roads and get run over.

I could not leave a cat to go hungry, I know others on here will say "but they fight" but most cat fighting is just posturing serious injury is rare. My cat gets into fights but has never been injured. And he's a nasty little bugger when he fights, next doors cat still managed to beat him up and she was half his weight!.

CPL are a bit bunny hugger on that - un neutered toms tend to live to around 6 or 7 years- admittedly much less than the 17 they'd get to if their nadgers were chopped off!

We had the same scenario happen to us with a known stray in the village. We took her to vets etc, no chip and put posters up in the village but she went unclaimed. We ended up keeping her and she and our other cat hated each other but a few months on, they tolerate each other and every time I look at her, I smile thinking how we have saved her from a hellish life. She's gorgeous. She kills a lot of mice though!

yonks ago we became aware that there was a spare cat hiding in our house
we named her "thief"
after 6 months of (abovementioned) boy cat not giving a stuff but his sister getting more and more psycho, we first tried to find her owner and then privately rehomed her
the new owners vet rated her at 6 years old and she apparently lived till late in her teens

Lol at bunny hugger! I rescued a myxy bunny and paid £15 to get it put down. Couldn't leave it on the road and drove home with it on my lap, dh thinks I'm too soft.

Sil tom lasted about 9 months before getting hit by a car and he was such a special chap I still hold it against her, her new cat was neutered and doesn't wander. I do get a bit judgy pants about it.

fluffy
old cat was neutered
he still got hit twice by cars
and used to walk S L O W L Y across the road in front of buses
dying young on the road is more character and location than gonads

Hi, we took in a stray, RSPCA or the cats league couldn't take her. She was young and sweet, only just neutered, but nobody respondrd to our posters. We kept her for a year and a half, but in the end, we had to rehome her as one of my own cats had started marking her territory, and it became too expensive and stressful to keep her.
She was a real baby too, really loved cuddles (where as my two will only come for some scratching when they're in the mood)

I'm pleased to report a happy ending!

Having tried (and failed) with every cat charity in the area, I have manage to rehome him privately to a friend of a friend through persistant Facebook posting of his cute pictures! :)

good news