Caught an (assumed feral) cat instead of a raccoon. Not sure what to do.
Hi. I’m a teen living in North Carolina, around Iredell County, and we caught a cat instead of the raccoon we were trying to cage to protect our chickens.
I’m asking: What do you think is best?
I suggested to my mom that we TNR, but she told me something along the lines of “the population isn’t an issue.” (I told her that’s not the whole point of TNR, but she didn’t seem to want to listen.) It’s been in our backyard for a few months now and taunts our dogs regularly, leading to many attempts to dig out, so my sister has asked that whatever happens we do not release it back anywhere near here.
We think that this cat is feral because it growls when anybody gets anywhere near it and tried to throw itself against the cage to get away when we got near, but it isn’t hissing or swatting unless we get really close, and it was honestly just very quiet and wary when I was sitting near the cage we trapped it in once movement stopped. I’m thinking there’s a potential chance it’s not quite as feral as we initially assumed, but unsure.
What I would want to do in an ideal world is try to rehabilitate this cat — I have no issue spending weeks to months for that outcome — but that’s seeming to be a difficult option, for three main reasons:
1.) The only open room in the house is the garage. We just finished brooding some chicks and so I turned the brooder into a makeshift safe space with food and water and a tarp over to keep the cat in, but it still seems really unideal.
2.) My dad does not want another indoor cat, and even if I WAS to somehow get this cat to a point where it feels safe enough to approach for food and water, I don’t feel comfortable “owning” an outdoor cat with no aims to bring it indoors eventually.
3.) My sister is EXTREMELY bad with animal boundaries (messes with both my cats regularly, and says “they’re just animals, it doesn’t matter” when I ask her to stop) and I worry she’ll try to overstep and try “helping” when all she ends up doing is stressing the cat out more and making it difficult if not impossible to properly socialize it.
CURRENTLY: Cat is in a large modified chick brooder with a top and door with litterbox, food, water, and a tarp-covered cage in the garage.
I’m thinking of pitching that I get a job (as summer is starting) and start a routine so that I can pay off any vet bills and make sure the litterbox is no issue. This MIGHT work to fix the whole dad issue, but i’m not 100% sure. I also don’t know if that’s the best option. I don’t know if there’s foster or adoption for feral(?) cats around here (which would likely be my #1 option if so), and I don’t know if it would be more moral to just beg my mom to TNR.
(Flaired for "urgent" because the decision has to be made by tomorrow, but I don’t know if that’s the wrong flair so apologies if so.)