Which is the answer to the problem of overpopulation with both dogs and cats.
The issue being cheap/free and readily available spaying and neutering.
Sounds good on paper, but it’s very very very rare, at least in my area.
Even the cheapest I could get for the dump-ees at my place was around $75 apiece, and that was at HALF PRICE with a coupon from PAWS. And still, I was only able to get a few of mine done at a time. So I had a new batch of kittens before I got the last female from the first batch spayed.
The vets insist on about a half dozen shots at $10 each, plus this fee and that fee, and suddenly a spay is over $150. And don’t get me started about what they want for a rabbit!!
Yes, I have a small herd of outdoor ‘barn’ cats with one who has decided he prefers my house to the storage building. Yes, I got all of mine fixed finally after a year of literally trapping cats and praying for no more kittens.
And yes, they are intimidated by the chickens.
But until a better, quicker and more logical solution comes along (like a spay/neuter pill that can be handed out FREE!!!!).
Lots of these poor folks are gonna be caught with a herd of cats that just started with one abandoned Mama.
Yes, but many people — especially many elderly women living alone — don’t usually have the cash on hand to get a pet fixed promptly. To get one of the low-cost or free deals offered by some local governments and animal welfare groups, you generally have to get a form, mail it in, get a coupon back, go to a participating vet. No doubt a lot can be done by Internet now, but the pet still needs to get to the vet, and many elderly people don’t have computers or Internet access. Many also don’t have cars and live in areas where public transportation is limited or non-existent, andmay have physical disability (mobility, vision, etc) that complicate the process. I did this once a long time ago, in basically per-Internet era, and it took a month, with no transportation issues and no disabilities, to get the job done. And if the pet is a stray that wandered in, it may already be pregnant, and the person is likely not to have a carrier (and a random cardboard box is an iffy way to confine a healthy young cat through a couple of bus or train rides and walking between those and the home and vet’s office).