Have you been tempted to feed or already fed that cute kitten or cat that keeps strolling through your yard? So many of us can relate and have been in that same situation, asking ourselves if we should put food and water out or just let them be.
The reason I bring this up is that by feeding that one cute cat eventually leads to feeding another and then another and another and so on. Then large Tom cats begin to show up. Then kittens begin to appear. Soon you realize that you are providing food for an entire clan of cats. Maybe you even start to trap them and take them to a local vet to be spayed or neutered. All of this is well and good in the beginning. But eventually this becomes expensive, time consuming and unsanitary for both you and the cats.
If you are feeding the cats on a porch or in a barn, that area will quickly become filthy and unsanitary. Disease can and will often be spread from one cat to another without you realizing it. They will breed more often as well since they are continually brought together more frequently than if they had to hunt and forage for their own food. You may also be interfering with and enabling a recent stray that would sooner go home where he belongs to eat vs having a reason to cross that busy street or walk through those woods to get to your porch.
The life of a feral cat is certainly a rough life. If you can trap one without creating a gang of cats showing up then great and by all means, get them fixed. However, it is best not to continue feeding them regularly. There is also an environmental impact to the surrounding wildlife when we choose to feed the strays/ferals? Again, you are luring more cats to a certain area that prey on wildlife as well as putting out food that could be harmful to the wildlife.
So, before you open a can to Fancy Feast or set out a bowl of cat chow, I encourage you to consider the pros and cons and do you own research. There are many on line sources you can reference on this topic. There are a couple listed below.
www.aaanimalcontrol.com/professional-trapper/feed-stray-cats.html
www.urbanwildliferesearchproject.org/feeding-the-feral-a-study-on-feral-cats-enviornmental-impact/