Thread:OylerD/@comment-25989346-20160707230927/@comment-32738051-20160708000147

Oh, Dean. You and your wife are really good people but you know you're on a slippery slope, right?

Voice of experience here. I have cats of my own indoors but also feral cats outdoors, not to mention all the other critters like birds, squirrels, possums, raccoons, and not least of all bugs (they all love the cat food). Amazingly no dogs and no predators. I only deliberately feed the feral cats but if they fail to eat every morsel, everyone else moves in to do it for them. You haven't seen anything until you see a pair of juvenile raccoons pawing at your outer porch screen door late at night begging to be let in because they just know you have food for them when you don't. Ha! Or a possum who just has to try swinging in one of your hanging planters, the plant in which died out long ago from such abuse, and wakes you up at 3am because it just can't figure out how to get back down again. Oy! Of course, there is no guarantee you won't end up with a bloodbath over the food, though largely they all seem to be accepting of one another and for the most part get along. And also if you feed even one feral cat, you can very easily end up with a family that eventually becomes one very large extended family and of course you feel like you then have to feed them all. Ugh! I fixed 13 feral cats last year. All but 3 of those are gone now but there were - still are - more that need to be fixed and I'm still saving up for that. Ugh! I like them, I really do, and I feel bad about each one that has disappeared but there are limits and I'm really looking forward to the day, probably still a few years away, when the population is a lot smaller and more manageable than it is now.

So good luck with your menagerie, Dean. I truly hope it never gets to being more than you and your wife can handle. 🙏