A Stray/Feral Cat Is Living In My Veggie Garden. What Do I Do?

[Starbird]

Weird question I know, but maybe someone has had a similar experience.

A few days ago an old, fairly unhealthy looking cat started following me on one of my night walks. I was eating a piece of fried chicken and felt extremely sorry for the thing, so I gave it a little. It must have followed me home, and taken up residence in the vegetable patch just outside my front door, where it meows pitifully at me every time I come home/leave.

Sometimes I feel bad enough to give it table scraps, which may be a mistake - but it just looks so unhappy and hungry.

Now I live in a very small town in rural Japan. There are no animal shelters anywhere nearby. There are a lot of stray/feral cats in the town, so I cannot exactly give it away.

However I don't really want a mangy old cat for a pet (I don't really want a pet at all).

What would you do in my position? Keep feeding it? Stop feeding it and hope it goes away (and doesn't die waiting for food in my veggie garden)?

 

[BathorysGraveland2]

Personally, I'd just put a bowl outside and fill it with cat biscuits every morning and leave it at that. However the expense might be a little much. So with that not an option, I'd just save up any left-over food and place it out in the garden somewhere. it would hardly be a pet in that situation, unless it came to trust you (which I doubt feral cats will).

 

[Elfgore]

Befriend the cat, mate with it's women, and in time your differences will be resolved

Okay, you made a vital mistake here. You gave the cat a reason to stick around. So you have two options. Wait it out. Eventually it may discover you have no intention of giving it more food and move on. If the guilt is getting to you, there is an option. I'm not sure of local laws regarding this or your current financial situation, but if you can afford it, get two bowls and just put out food and water from time to time. The cat will stick around and you have to deal with none of the shedding or shit-cleaning that comes with pet ownership. We've been doing that for the past ten years at my Dad's. Now a downside is that more may come, at one point we had five feral cats coming to our house for food and water. That's really the only advice I ca give.

 

[Starbird]

Befriend the cat, mate with it's women, and in time your differences will be resolved

Okay, you made a vital mistake here. You gave the cat a reason to stick around. So you have two options. Wait it out. Eventually it may discover you have no intention of giving it more food and move on. If the guilt is getting to you, there is an option. I'm not sure of local laws regarding this or your current financial situation, but if you can afford it, get two bowls and just put out food and water from time to time. The cat will stick around and you have to deal with none of the shedding or shit-cleaning that comes with pet ownership. We've been doing that for the past ten years at my Dad's. Now a downside is that more may come, at one point we had five feral cats coming to our house for food and water. That's really the only advice I ca give.

Yeah I think this is sound advice. I don't really want a pet, but I do feel somewhat responsible for the kitty so I will leave food out for it. Now to research what is okay to give a cat leftover wise...

 

[Elfgore]

Befriend the cat, mate with it's women, and in time your differences will be resolved

Okay, you made a vital mistake here. You gave the cat a reason to stick around. So you have two options. Wait it out. Eventually it may discover you have no intention of giving it more food and move on. If the guilt is getting to you, there is an option. I'm not sure of local laws regarding this or your current financial situation, but if you can afford it, get two bowls and just put out food and water from time to time. The cat will stick around and you have to deal with none of the shedding or shit-cleaning that comes with pet ownership. We've been doing that for the past ten years at my Dad's. Now a downside is that more may come, at one point we had five feral cats coming to our house for food and water. That's really the only advice I ca give.

Yeah I think this is sound advice. I don't really want a pet, but I do feel somewhat responsible for the kitty so I will leave food out for it. Now to research what is okay to give a cat leftover wise...

Oops, forgot to address that. Do. Not. Give. This. Cat. Human. Food. Human food can be harmful to an animals health. If the cat looks mangy now, giving it leftovers will not help. I beleive it has something to do with the oils that go into it. That's why I mentioned "if your financial condition allowed this". You're gonna have to give this guy actual cat food.

 

[Starbird]

Befriend the cat, mate with it's women, and in time your differences will be resolved

Okay, you made a vital mistake here. You gave the cat a reason to stick around. So you have two options. Wait it out. Eventually it may discover you have no intention of giving it more food and move on. If the guilt is getting to you, there is an option. I'm not sure of local laws regarding this or your current financial situation, but if you can afford it, get two bowls and just put out food and water from time to time. The cat will stick around and you have to deal with none of the shedding or shit-cleaning that comes with pet ownership. We've been doing that for the past ten years at my Dad's. Now a downside is that more may come, at one point we had five feral cats coming to our house for food and water. That's really the only advice I ca give.

Yeah I think this is sound advice. I don't really want a pet, but I do feel somewhat responsible for the kitty so I will leave food out for it. Now to research what is okay to give a cat leftover wise...

Oops, forgot to address that. Do. Not. Give. This. Cat. Human. Food. Human food can be harmful to an animals health. If the cat looks mangy now, giving it leftovers will not help. I beleive it has something to do with the oils that go into it. That's why I mentioned "if your financial condition allowed this". You're gonna have to give this guy actual cat food.

Hmm. I will look into it. The problem is that it will need to be fairly circumspect because while it's not essentially prohibited, my landlady will be extremely unhappy if I start attracting feral cats to the area. May need to do it late night.

 

[carnex]

If you start leaving food outside, both cats and dogs will start coming. That much is inevitable. Be sure to work it out with your landlady before you risk something like that.

 

[Darks63]

I would stop feeding as other ferals will be drawn to you house and they will make a mess of you property fast. Your garden will be the first causality as they love lose dirt area for use as litter boxes. The digging and the feces ruins the garden and causes mushrooms to grow underground wrecking the roots of your other plants.

My neighborhood has a crazy old couple that mass feeds ferals via a trough. After they eat the cats go about digging up gardens and yards in the neighborhood to use as litter boxes. I had to erect a chicken wire barricade around my planter to get them to stop.

 

[KINGBeerZ]

Hide, run and hide far away from it, and pray it doesn't find you, but you will not be safe, none of us are safe, for the cat sees all and knows all.



But seriously, you should probably just stop feeding it and hope that it goes somewhere else.

 

[Starbird]

I understand the advice...but I feel oddly responsible for it. Ah well, lets see how it goes.

 

[shootthebandit]

Try to discourage it. Buy a water gun and spray it everytime you see it. It will learn that you arent friendly and it will go away

I would hate to tell you to kill it but if it doesnt go away then it might be for the best. Im going to get a lot of hate for that but any animal that is a wild vermin living in your garden you would do the same particularly one which could spread diseases

 

[Starbird]

Try to discourage it. Buy a water gun and spray it everytime you see it. It will learn that you arent friendly and it will go away

I would hate to tell you to kill it but if it doesnt go away then it might be for the best. Im going to get a lot of hate for that but any animal that is a wild vermin living in your garden you would do the same particularly one which could spread diseases

If I wanted it dead, I could simply call the local police and say it's being a nuisance. I sort of want to avoid that though.

 

[Post Tenebrae Morte]

It could just be looking for a little comfort on its way out. If it really is as bad as you say, it likely will be gone in a couple months.
Look at it this way: you now have a little furry friend who is appreciative of the scraps you extend towards it.

 

[Starbird]

Do not feed stray animals, or wild animals.

Contact local animal control for your area, even if you don't think you have it it's a pretty basic municipal function and their number is probably buried somewhere in your town's website. They'll likely either come out or give you a trap for it.

In honesty, killing it probably is the appropriate course of actions, but again, don't do it yourself if you don't have experience with handling animals, contact the people who get paid to do it. It can be somewhat dangerous to try to sack it and drop it in the river yourself, cats are known to carry a lot of diseases and they have numerous pointy bits to snag you with.

It could just be looking for a little comfort on its way out. If it really is as bad as you say, it likely will be gone in a couple months.
Look at it this way: you now have a little furry friend who is appreciative of the scraps you extend towards it.

I don't think it is heavily diseased, the face looks a tad mangy but otherwise it's just malnourished (at a first glance).

The ferals in this area are...weird. They are not terribly skittish and seemingly survive by hunting and eating scraps from the various fishing boats that come into the small harbour near my house constantly.

I have absolutely no idea how they survive the winter - but come spring there are a ton of little feral kittens running around. Sigh...I really do love my town ^_^.

Perhaps I am overly soft-hearted, but I would hate to see it put down. I'm not that much of an animal lover either - but the little beastie's only crime was trying to meow more chicken into existence and following me home .

 

[Post Tenebrae Morte]

I admit, I'm a bit biased because I am a cat person and I had to bury my little guy yesterday after he went limp and lazy two days ago. But it isn't a bad thing to show mercy to creatures like a cat, and while you may have never asked for it, sometimes great things can come from on-the-spur moments and relationships.

That is what makes us different from other beasts: our ability to care and emphasize with even foreign species. Tis best to have a soft heart than no heart at all.

 

[Dragonbums]

I think others made this suggestion for me, but putting a bowl out full of food should just do the trick honestly.

If possible I would (for the sake of breeding and diesease) take it to the vet to get it shots, spayed and neutered if possible and let it on it's merry way. Hell doing that to strays tends to dramatically reduce the amount of wild cats in a particular area.

 

[mecegirl]

Your story broke my heard OP....

But I would just say that if you you are going to feed it cheap cat food is better for the little thing than no food or table scraps. Just place it away from your garden instead of in the garden so that it has less incentive to stay in the garden.

 

[BiscuitTrouser]

If you wanna do your community a favor and it trusts you i could suggest at least getting it spayed if youre going to keep feeding it. I mean if its female and it wants to stick around and youre gonna feed it well... you might end up supporting a whole litter when that thing hits heat.

I think others made this suggestion for me, but putting a bowl out full of food should just do the trick honestly.

If possible I would (for the sake of breeding and diesease) take it to the vet to get it shots, spayed and neutered if possible and let it on it's merry way. Hell doing that to strays tends to dramatically reduce the amount of wild cats in a particular area.

Oh someone already gave this good advice.

Feral cats actually do have use. Disney land employs them as pest control, and governments keep neutered male cats to act as a deterrent to other cats due to the fact they are territorial, you might find if you feed your new cat up so its bigger than the rest and its a tom-cat that it keeps other feral cats off your property. Guard-cat.

 

[Coruptin]

can you call pest control or something? it's not your cat and it's not your responsibility. you have no obligation to look after it. ignore it and it'll go away. don't try to remove it yourself though, either ignore it and wait for it leave or call pest control to do it for you.

edit: i can't believe i have to add this but

DONT CONTINUE FEEDING THE CAT
DONT LEAVE OUT A WHOLE BOWL OF FOOD FOR THE CAT
DONT GIVE THE CAT ANY ATTENTION AT ALL
UNLESS BY SAYING THAT YOU DIDNT WANT A PET YOU ACTUALLY MEANT THE OPPOSITE THIS IS LITERALLY THE WORST THING YOU COULD DO