In American households, there are a total of 60 million pet cats. Unfortunately, while these kitties are fed, petted, loved, and sheltered on rainy days, there are an estimated 100 million feral cats roaming about the country. Feral cats differ from stray cats; feral cats are cats that are born and live in the wild, while stray cats are domesticated cats that once had a home and may have been lost, abandoned, or otherwise separated.

Feral cats are not pleasant creatures. They are ferocious and extremely defensive, which they need to be, in order to survive in the wild. They are not friendly, and will usually attack anyone or anything by which they feel threatened. If you have a problem with feral cats hanging in or around your home, it is recommended that you not try to capture them, yourself. They can be riddled with many different types of diseases, both fatal and nonfatal, such as rabies, ringworm, feline leukemia, cat scratch fever, and more. Hire a wildlife removal professional to take care of the problem, instead. Home remedies, such as rags soaked in ammonia, moth balls, and ultrasonic pest repellent gadgets rarely work for the prevention of stray and feral cats. The only real way to rid your home of these vicious felines is to find them and have them manually removed by an experienced professional.

You can, at least, take a measure to prevent feral and stray cats from coming to your door by NOT FEEDING THEM. Many people feel sorry for homeless kitties and feel obligated to help them out. While this is nice, in principle, in practice, it will only bring your satisfied beggar right back… and he’ll probably bring his friends!

To help decrease the growing number of homeless and feral cats living in our country, please, make sure that you have your cats spayed or neutered. The more feral cats there are in the wild, the more you and your house cats are put at risk.