Feral Cats Rehomed To Act As Pest Control
I have always known that cats can be used for pest control especially on farms. We have five semi feral cats (I say semi feral as they live outside, but they are my pet cats as they have names, are feed pet food and can be petted) who keep the the rat and mice population down on our farm and this week I have been going over to feed the 10-12 cats on our neighbours farm that are also semi feral and help to keep vermin under control.
I have just been reading an article on the BBC news website about how feral cats are to be pest controllers.
The article describes how the cats protection charity in Bournmouth are rounding up feral cats in the hope of re-homing them on farms as pest controllers. The cats are caught, given medical treatment and neutered, before being sent out to farmers. The charity feels that the cats won’t be tame enough to become household pets so their perfect environment is stables, farms or garden centres.
I think this is an excellent idea to rehome the feral cats on farms to act as pest control as this helps the farm with any vermin problems and also gives the cats the chance to be well looked after.
Let me know what you think about this.
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Am not to sure about having feral cats running round a farm in my experience I have seen feral cats being twice the size as domestics and there diet being more varied pigeons/chicks/chickens/ rodents/ The farms I have visited have all of these and wouldnt be to keen on a predator roaming round the farm if food sorce was scarce. Also feral cats dont need any looking after they look after them selfs.
Hi Sara,
I am afraid I have never heard such rubbish as that wrote by allroundhunter. I have kept horses for years and been on many farms and am also a volunteer of the cats protection league. Most feral cats were domestics who have been dumped or kittens born outside or farm cats. They do need feeding like any other pet cat. Most of the ferals I feed are usually crawling with worms and fleas from having to feed on vermin. Eventually these things do kill the animals. Feral cats are very one to one animals and once you start feeding reguuarlly will come around like most domestics and also let you stroke them. They usually love attention. If you read any advice from vets or the CPL is that a well fed cat is actually a better vermin killer. Most hunters would need food to have the energy to go out and kill. It is a brilliant idea in my experience as most of the feral colonies I feed are on industrial estates or around shopping malls, anywhere they can find scraps of food. They do not have good shelter and a farm would offer this and probably a safer living environment as the amount I find killed from traffic accidents is heartbreaking. If you are interested and contact most sanctuaries or the CPL we always make sure the ferals are nuetered, wormed, and de-flead before they come.
Once again they should and must be promised to be fed daily before the CPL will re-home them at farms or small holdings. It only takes a kitten around 10 weeks before it becomes semi or fully feral. Ferals generally only have a very small lifespan a couple or few years because of there tough lifestyles, however with feed, regular worming etc I have been feeding the same group for upto 12 – 15 years.
Hi Jellybean,
Thanks for your thoughts and opinions on feral cats. I have five farm cats that I feed twice a day and then they supplement that feed with rodent control. Snowy is at least ten years old and her offspring are all 4 or 5 years old. They live outside but are friendly to me as they know that I feed them and care for them. I consider them my pets. as well as farm cats.
Kind regards
sara @ farmingfriends