Thinking over options: Stray/feral mama cat and two kittens

Today we discovered a mama cat and her kittens hanging out in our yard/garage. We've been out of town for about a week; just got back yesterday.

I don't know if they are feral or if the mama is a stray. She's very skittish and runs away when I try to approach her, but she gobbled up the food I put out for her, and when I talked softly to her through the window, she did the languid-blink thing that makes me think she's not totally wild. The kittens are still nursing and I judge them to be about 4 weeks old.

I have a message in to my neighborhood association to put out the word, in case she's a pet that wandered off to have her babies.

We already have two cats and are under/unemployed right now. Can't really take on the expense of even one of them. I'm willing to pony up the money for a spay, as we have a couple of programs here that will do that for ferals for a nominal fee. I imagine the kittens would get adopted out readily enough.

I dunno, just kind of thinking out loud. The TNR (trap-neuter-release) programs all insist on releasing back to where the animal was found. I understand that, but then she'd still be my responsibility. I could trap the lot of them and take them off to the HS, but then it's likely Mama would be euthanized. We do have an excellent no-kill facility here; I adopted one of my cats from them and also took a stray cat to them.

For now we're just leaving things be, except for putting out food and water. Anyone with experience with this sort of thing want to weigh in with some words of wisdom?

I think getting the cat spayed seems like the best idea. I don't have experience with feral cats, hoping some DUers have advice for you.

http://www.alleycat.org/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?pid=191

If they don't have a chapter near you, there may be another group that they know of.

Thanks for caring about these kitties! :hug::hug::hug:

programs will help you with a nursing mother because kittens are much easier to adopt.

...and if you can get someone to take her and the kittens then she can probably be socialized and adopted. Cats born in the wild, as a rule, don't talk...their mothers teach them to be quiet because meowing attracts people.

We do have an affiliate here in Rochester, and our local HS will do feral neutering. I was thinking of giving it a few more days and seeing if I could get her used to me enough that I could approach her, pet her. I don't want to just hand her over to HS in case she's not adoptable, but they might just tell me to release her back into my yard, which I'm not too keen on either!

Ack. Fortunately we do have a Havahart trap. I know I need to do something!

Do they have some shelter? Luckily it's still summer, so hopefully cold weather won't be an issue.

:hi:

on edit: I guess your garage is their shelter. Do they have any soft places to sleep/hang out?

they come out and hang out on the grass. It's very hot here right now so I imagine that's a relief after being in the garage all day, which they seem to prefer. I put an old blanket down on the garage floor but I don't know if they've been using it.