I'm sure the feral and semi-feral cats in the area really appreciate you all.

Why did you get into feeding feral and semi-feral cats other than the obvious fact that they needed someone to do so?

MerlinsDad said:

Why did you get into feeding feral and semi-feral cats other than the obvious fact that they needed someone to do so?

That was what they needed. That, and they control rodents. Pack rats can destroy the wiring under the hood of a car and turn it into junk overnight.

With cats on patrol, I haven't had any more destroyed vehicles.

Yes, they can. Some car manufacturers use soy based casing on wiring, which smells like food to rats.

They gnawed up so much wiring under the hood of a 1986 Lincoln Town Car that it just had to be scrapped for parts. Admittedly it had nearly a quarter million miles on it, an had been driven for almost 20 years but the night the rats got to that wiring harness it just shorted out so much stuff and severed so many wires that splicing them would have taken months or years.

To keep another car running I managed to get hold of some stainless steel wire loom material that could be spiralled around wiring bundles. It was rather expensive and a lot of work to install it.

It’s very expensive even if you can do it yourself. It is even worse if you pay someone else to do it.

That's right!  You live out in the country where rats are more common.  You have a private four legged army protecting your domain.

They are a very efficient mercenary army, which mostly take sacks of dry cat food and occasional trips to the vet to patrol the grounds and quickly neutralize enemy sappers.

Any idea how many you feed on a daily basis?

I need to put some fresh batteries in the wildlife camera, and that ought to reveal enough pictures to see how many cats (and raccoons, skunks, etc) are being fed there.

That is a good idea.