I started feeding a feral cat. She now hangs around the porch and I noticed she is expecting for the second time. I was able to give the last batch away but not sure if I can do it again.
She is unusual as she has a stubby tail. I thought she must have lost it to a coyote or dog etc. When she had her litter, I noticed one of them also had a stubby tail.
At least she keeps the rats and mice down.
The cat is a Manx. The Manx gene is dominant, so much so that a kitten with the two dominant Manx genes cannot live.
With a litter of four the probability is that two of the kittens will have some type of Manx trait, ie. shortened or no tail.
“I started feeding a feral cat. She now hangs around the porch and I noticed she is expecting for the second time”
We fed a black feral cat on our screen porch for a year. He (Darth Vader) got fat, and then he lost weight. Then “he” plopped himself on the back sidewalk in front of our kitchen window nursing three babies. The message: “They’re your problem now.”
So Darth Vader became Darth Ann. We trapped her and the babies and took them to a low-cost spay / neuter clinic. Then we released them. If you can spay the mama, it would be good. Babies in the wild usually die horrific deaths.
Anyhow, winter came, and Tennessee winters can be bad. Now all of them live in our house and are the sweetest and most tame of all of our pets.
Bless you for helping her and her babies! Do please get he neutered once the babies come.
Do youyself and those poor cars a favor; have her spayed!!!