Abandoned mama cat and baby in our backyard - advice pls
We live in a rural area and there are a lot of barn/feral cats in the area, as well as strays as people will often dump their unwanted pets nearby. We had a cat meowing by our back door for 2 days, driving our dog and our indoor cat nuts. We had hoped she'd move on. Then when we didn't respond she brought out the "big guns" and showed us her nursing kitten right on the back porch. Game over!
We figured we had to do something so we enticed them to our back porch, away from the windows where our dog and cat can see out, and set out some food and water. From what we can tell it seems they have been staying in a small shed on the property. Mama is wary/cautious, with low growls when we are near, especially if the kitten is with her, but not aggressive in any way, and she's been getting more bold about approaching and coming close to us when we bring out the food. The kitten is similar, cautious but curious. They seem quite clean and in good shape which is causing us to believe these were a dump/abandon not a feral/barn cat situation.
We would like to try and get them spayed/neutered (don't know sex of the kitten) as soon as practicable. They seem very attached to each other so I don't like the idea of separating mom from baby for a week while mom recovers - the local vet who does the TNR in the area said one week in a secure indoor area for healing. So ideally I'd like to try to take them both at the same time. Vet says the kitten must be at least 3 pounds before surgery. Kitten is active and mom leaves it for quite a bit of time (we didn't even know she had a kitten for the first 2 days), and is eating solid food but still nursing. I have a tentative appointment for 2 weeks from now but think I may postpone another 1-2 weeks just to be sure kitten is big enough.
Never having done this before (and frankly, never really wanting to but what are we going to do?), looking for some advice from your experience. Local resource said we should try to use these next 2 weeks to gain trust, be able to pet them, etc so we could maybe avoid the whole trapping experience and instead just scoop them up into a carrier. Mom seems like she would be pretty savvy to a trap situation. Does that seem like that's too good to be true? Also, I'm seeing conflicting advice RE healing time. Local vet says 1 week contained in a dog crate, the interwebs says 24-48 hours. I think if I can do both at once I'd be okay with 1 week, but I think if mom is separated from baby I wouldn't feel comfortable separating them that long.
The vet also suggested that we may be able to find someone to adopt out/foster the kitten, but they seem so attached I don't think I could separate them. Am I being unreasonable and doing the kitten a disservice? FWIW there are few resources here locally and the few volunteer run shelters are full to overflowing with cats already and not taking any more. I don't even know if that's feasible for them to take a kitten.
Finally, we're concerned that having food out will attract more cats, which in and of itself could become a bigger problem with fights, etc. Not to mention we don't want to end up with a cat rescue here if we can help it. How likely of a problem is that to be, given that the nearest homes to us are about 500 yards away on either side.
Thanks all for any advice!