Stop breeding cats or you'll end up a cat lady.... Allow yourself 2, three at most.... I mean it... Cats HATE being hoarded...
I'm not breeding or hoarding cats lol.
We have sterilized over 40 cats over the past 3 years. Homed more than 25 cats and kittens (not all in here at the same time). Once I get a cat it goes into "quarantine" and goes right to the vet to be sterilized, tested for FIV/feline leukemia and given all the shots. I TNR 6 ferals (except one we call Big Daddy....a giant tuxedo who is very wild and aggresive and probably fathered many kittens here including my tuxies) The one with the kittens was a foster I took temporarily and the place she was going agreed to take more of my cats. Really awesome older woman who started off just like me and started doing rescue. NONE of these cats are making babies on my watch. They get sterilized immediately.
She has helped me help these cats A LOT. She hooked me up with a large bottle of antibiotics. KRM(kitten replacer milk), and terramycin. I have a whole tub of cat meds and emergency kitten supplies in case we find another newborn laying in the damn road. You really have to be very clean to even think about doing what I did or you'll end up with sick and dying cats with upper respiratory infections and eye infections. It is SO MUCH work. The local vet here has also been awesome and has given us such a great discount because he likes that we are doing it.
Believe me if you saw the absolutely fuckery that goes on here with animal dumping you would be horrified. Someone even dumped a domestic RABBIT. And that little fucker is still alive out here two years later. We have all tried to catch him and help him.....nope. But he is doing it. Dogs have been dumped. Several poor little cats have been dumped. Its fucking disgusting. All kinds of methed up.
My mother was bringing in cats, keeping kittens the street cat had but not sterilizing them so we had to take 12 cats to be sterilized all at the same time. It was nuts! And getting my wacko mother to let go of cats is a huge fucking pain. I had to spend a month convincing her that her 16 year old arthritic cat who could barely get to the litter box and wasnt holding weight was suffering and needed to be euthanized. After a while I flat out told her she was torturing that cat. She finally agreed and we had that handled the next day.
Then there were like....5 she was clinging to and I eventually went off because IM the one who does all the work. On top of taking care of HER. We allowed her two and we are gonna have her looking after them.
And it's not weird to find random newborn kittens laying around out there either.
I love this area but I hate this place. It's been a lot. Just.....a lot lol.
The house actually feels empty now with a "normal" amount of cats (5). But I havent to scoop a litter box more than twice a day now....i was scooping boxes like 5 and 6 times a day and vacuuming twice. I feel like I'm a vacation. I love animals but it's good to fucking relax a bit.
I very much am a cat lady but I'm the kind that will find homes for them lol.