Skin and bones stray what can I do?

[Hazelnutwhirls]

Hi, for the last few weeks I have seen a cat where I park my car for work sitting outside the same house, I assumed he lived there and was returning from a night out! On Monday I saw her further down the road and it came up to me crying, this is when I saw she is so skinny!! You can see every bone in her body . I went to the shop and bought her some food and fed her and I have been feeding her each day for the rest of this week, she will come close and cry at me but not close enough that I can catch her, (not really sure what I would do if I could catch her to be honest) , she does eat the food when I walk away, I have spied from round the corner!!!
I have tried knocking at the door the cat sits near but I start work very early and there is no answer, I put a note through the door but no-one has responded and I am fairly sure this cat hasn't got much life left in her if something isn't done , I called my local council and they don't come out for stray cats and considered the RSPCA but read somewhere they would likely put her to sleep. What else can I do? Thanks

I am still feeding her and she does seem to have gained a bit of weight back

I also try Cats Protection. Alternatively, speak to a local vet, explain your concerns and explain you've tried to contact someone local. They may be willing to check for a microchip (as she could be someone's lost cat) or probably have connections if they're concerned about the welfare of the cat.

Oh that's a shame. I know we have no space in any of our clinics (and while people keep not bothering to neuter their cats things will never change), but I still think we need to at least scan her for a chip and check that she's neutered and doesn't have any serious health conditions. From there we can determine her priority for taking in permanently and at least maybe bump her up the waiting list.

However all this takes a lot of time and resources, and each of our clinics must get at least thirty similar calls a day, so of course we can't do everything we'd like to.

I did say though that I would so something if Lewisham can't. So please can you pm me with all the details (location/when you see her/when you feed her) and if you have any photos that would be useful.

You could try The New Moon Rescue - might be a bit far for them - but they specialise in strays and ferals.

It's OK folks. I'm going to do it.

newmoonrescue.com/contact/

Thecaatneuterer, you're an absolute star, thankyou for helping all those poor cats.

I’d feed it. If it’s someones cat with a food issue it would have a collar on and a tag saying not to feed it

Not necessarily. Cats can lose collars, sometimes it’s best not to for safety, or like my elderly cat with health problems, his skin became very sensitive with drugs and age so we had to leave the collar off as it was rubbing his skin off.

Mine had inflammatory bowel disease for many years. He was on a carefully balance diet as he couldn’t take the medication to balance it. Someone feeding it bog standard cat food would cause horrendous diarrhoea and an expensive trip to the vet for rehydration. I went round all the neighbours and let them know so it very rarely happened.

So no, i wouldn't feed a cat that wasn’t mine. If I thought it was really ill or starving I’d take it to a vet for a microchip and health check first.

If I had £1 for every cat I've dealt with over the last 20 years or so that was thin because of lack of food then I'd have enough to buy a swanky flat in London. If I had £1 for every one that had turned out to be owned and had some sort of illness causing the thinness then I'd have enough to buy a B&Q Basics Range door handle for said flat. And with cats that are too nervous to get hold of to get to a vet to be scanned, as with this one, you have no alternative but to feed first to enable them to be caught/trapped,

No one is saying that if you're worried about a cat you shouldn't get it scanned or put a paper collar with a message on at the first possible opportunity but, in the meantime, the right advice is definitely to feed. If people were too worried to do that then then literally thousands more cats would die every year.

I don't know how to send a pm!!!

If you’re on the app, tap the three little dots to the right of a post from the person you want to pm. It will give you a menu of options, one of which is pm.

Thank you!!!

Really not sure you can see how thin she is from the photos, her spine and hips can very clearly be seen . I have plied @thecatneuterer

That's one thin cat. Kitten food is higher in calories.

Op. Contact the ginger cat house rescue, they are on Facebook

Thank you for caring

Just to let everyone know the very lovely @thecatneuter has arranged the rescue of this poor cat and she is now in the hands of CHAT . Thank you to everyone for your advice most especially the catneuter, hopefully she is on her way to a much better life

Well done hazel and the wonderful Catneuterer. I think the great summer has led to a kitten boom and rescues are packed to the roof. If you are considering adopting now is the time. My CP group doesn’t adopt out in December so get in early if you want the entertainment of a cat in your Christmas tree for the next 20 years.

Oh fantastic news, well done to both of you, at least one more little soul off the streets, so many people just ignore them or say 'it's a cat it'll be fine" when they are really in desperate need; good to see someone actually doing something.

The strays do seem to becoming a bigger problem, I think there are more and more people not bothering to neuter sadly; I'm going to ask for a sponsored cat for Christmas, every little helps:)

Well done Hazel and thecatneuterer! Xx