How many cats are too many?

I currently have three cats - a 3-year old male, an 8-month old male and a 6-month old female. They all get along well.

My neighbor volunteers with a feral rescue organization and wants me to take in a new two-year old orange male who she says is a total love-bug. He's blind in one eye (got tar in it) and may have to have it removed. I'm a sucker for hurt animals.

So.... is four too many? BTW... this neighbor would take the cat herself, but her and her husband already have THIRTEEN cats. I kid you not. They're not crazy people, either. They're just soft-hearted. The cats are all extremely well-cared for, and if you were to go in their house, you'd have no idea they even had cats.

So... should I go for a fourth? I LOVE having three cats - the interaction between them makes it so much more interesting than just having one or two.

<<kidding>>

any animal that shits in your house on purpose- and you condone it -is just too disgusting for me.

I'm not a big fan of the litterbox. Hence the cat door. Once the kitties are acclimated to the house, I make them do their business outside.

It's right about there.

:)

There's not a big difference between taking care of three and taking care of four. If you've got the room and the will, why not?

You'll have plenty to go around. Take the red tabby in. You won't regret it.

(on edit, unsolicited advice: do one litter box per cat plus one. makes life much easier on you, and makes the cats happier.)

and I wouldn't take another pet in. It's a matter of personal preference I guess. I think it's too many but many cat lovers here would disagree with me. (And it's not that I don't adore my kitties, either)

My folks have six (!!!) cats now, up from four a couple years ago. Their house is (IIRC) about 3000 sq. ft., and while 4 cats was fine, the house is noticeably too small for six cats -- not enough space to put all the litter boxes together, way too much fur all over everything, not quite enough hiding places for the more antisocial of the "colony." Perhaps it would work if all the cats were equally sociable, but I tend to think the "carrying capacity" has been exceeded there.

Other than space reasons, I can't think of a reason not to add a fourth cat. :-)

My daughter has a really bad cat allergy, so no cats for us. Although she will be going off to college in another 7 years. Jesus Christ, that makes me feel old (but I'm not).

Age is unimportant unless you are a cheese. :7

We've done the same. My GF has 3 cats, all black and white females, and now we have a grey male somebody dumped who's getting over pneumonia and will soon loose his balls and become housecat #4...

Any in excess of three per single family dwelling and they can and have legally removed them.

I love my little dudes. I'd hate to have them snatched even in their own alleged best interests.

Check your local ordinances.

I am building a room for my multitude! They just happened - I kept adding on from people who asked me to just take them for a little while - to the feral cats - etc. We caged in the entire back yard - shadow box then wire fencing on top - not too visable from the main road. They have a secure place where they can play and noone can hurt them. They have a cat door, so they come in and out. The new room will also have a cat door and will allow us to seclude them from the indoor furniture.

The answer to your question is that as long as you have enough love in your heart and enough food in the dish - there are never enough!

p.s. I also have 1 very lovable Pitbull who just also kind of "arrived" here. She babysits the cats!

though I would add that it's kind of up to the cats themselves (in a way); adding another personality to the mix can sometimes prove problematic.

wish I could afford that many!

how many rooms are too few for X number of cats? I have three in a relatively small 2 bedroom apartment, and they are quite happy. It is something of a bohemian existence, but very enjoyable. Ctas are cool, they always seem to know what our human moods are, and respond with love with we are hurting. I say, the more, the merrier (as long as there is room for the human element as well).:toast:

None were ever enough.

For my Mom, another litter-box was just another "summit" to climb and she way 70+ when she tossed in the deoderant.

is the first thing you smell when you walk in the house, you have too many cats....

The litterbox can't be smelled even when in the same room with it, unless Stewart has just released a stink bomb, and even then it only is odiferous for a few moments.

For some people that means ONE cat is too many, for others they can have a house full!
BTW, I'm a "dog person"!

about 10 months ago, we now have three females and one total lovebug orange male tabby. Our newest addition is mostly an outdoor girl, being semi-feral still and preferring her garage condo to our house. They're wonderful, if you can do it, go for it. You'll know when you've reached your limit.

cats need lovin,' too.....

a coworker and his wife take in strays and so forth... last count was over 40-some felines in the house.. I'm not sure the size of the house, but I can tell you this, their vet bills are out of this world!!!

I used to have 4 cats. I don't think you mentioned whether you live in an apt. or a house, but if you decide to adopt another, please check to make sure having 4 animals doesn't violate apt. rules/city regulations/deed restrictions (though I know you said your neighbor has 13 cats).

but I am a sucker for kitties in need.. You all know the saga of the bottle fed litters, so I will not bore you.. But now that Mom is fixed, (she hates us and will not even make eye contact) there will be no more kittens.. I would never know which ones I could part with, though, so we are a nine cat family.. WEe have 6 litter boxes and most of the time, you never see more than 2 cats at a time. They have their special places all staked out..

is a general rule of thumb, like someone said a little further up, if you can smell it regularly, you have too many.

But I really do admire people who can take care of hurt animals. I couldn't do it, I have a hard enough time with just one. I have a friend who raided a university test lab and stole all the cats that were being tested on. She later learned that one of the cats had human HIV. It takes a unique kind of person to care for animals like that.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is if your going to have a few you might as well try to help bring down the population of homeless, or hurt animals.

How much love can you handle? How much do you have to give?

I think when you get to that point you'll know you have enough.

In an apartment? One. In a house? Maybe twenty or so.

anything more than that gets out of hand.

We had four at one point. (Now 2 cats and a big dog.) But, we could have easily managed more than 4. And, they never went outside, so they were there 24/7. No problems at all.

Past six and i think it could get out of hand very easily.
The Professor

where they took over 200(?) cats out of a house? There were so many that most of them were feral. Every bit of that house was covered in cat feces and hair. The rescuers had to go outside away from the fumes every few minutes. Of course, probably all of those poor animals were put to sleep. That is too many cats.

Anyway, if ordinances do not interfere, as many cats as you want, can afford to take care of, give each love and attention to, and not have the house stink, is how many you should have.

And you know that if they got 249 of them, there were still a bunch that they missed. That was just about the saddest thing I've ever seen. Man, that house looked like a cave on the inside. I hope the guy that owns the place was able to get help for his obvious mental problems. Animal Precinct is one of my favorite shows, BTW. Good people doing good work.

But if she hadn't come along, we'd have been happy with three cats and a dog. In other words, for our house -- a smallish fifties split-level -- five is probably about half a cat too many, but they get along okay, and mostly ignore the dog, so it's not like it's awful. In fact, the other cats mostly ignore the 'last hired,' too -- she seemed to figure out what it took to fit in with them and did it immediately, there was never any sense they saw her as an intruder.

We have an ordinance where we live that limits us to five pets of mixed types, so that's what keeps us from bringing in any more (well, that and the fact that I said 'four cats is one too many' when we brought the little stray home a year and some change ago). The last one wasn't even my idea -- I wanted to foster her through a shelter so somebody else could adopt her. Mr. Nownow wanted to keep her. She's a good cat, and hasn't caused any serious problems so far, so I'm not sorry we did, but ...

I'll put it this way: if something happens to one of them, and we're down to three cats again, I'll be perfectly happy not to replace. The litter boxes aren't so much the problem as the grand accumulation of fuzz -- we find fuzz in the freakin' refrigerator! That didn't start happening until we had three of them, and it's only been aggravated by the addition of a fourth cat and a dog.

At one time I had eighteen of them. Unfortunately, we had a few pass on...

Two died from heart failure. Actually, one of these two may have died from falling off a door, which was his favorite sleeping place.
One died of brain cancer
One of a berry aneuryism of the brain
One died of liver failure
We lost three kittens because my wife sprayed the carpet in the bedroom with flea spray then wouldn't let the mother get them up onto a shelf in my end table, and they died of insecticide intoxication

We then got Hormel from a neighbor who was going to take her to the pound, and I recovered Roll (so named after her favorite snack, hard rolls with no butter) from the front suspension in my car. Six months later, we lost our calico Persian from old age and our shorthaired calico died about six weeks later of what I believe to be a broken heart--the only cat who would associate with her was the one who died of old age, and when we lost that cat she didn't have anything to live for.