The Barn Cat Network is a network of people just like you who can take in feral and semi-feral cats that are forced to relocate from their outdoor homes.
Every single week I get messages or emails from rescues or shelters or just a concerned citizen who needs to find a barn home (or similar) for a feral or unadoptable cat.
It doesn’t matter if you have a barn, farm or ranch. You could have a warehouse or wood shop or business where a working cat would be welcome. Or are you someone who loves these felines but don’t have a barn? You could foster one until a suitable farm or location is found simply by having a large pet cage in your garage or spare bedroom.
Feral cat groups and rescues welcome, too!
Join: The Barn Cat Network Facebook Group
OR if you’re not into the social thing, simply enter your information in the database and any feral or community cats needing a home come up in your area, you’ll receive an email!
What is the Barn Cat Network?
The Barn Cat Network is exactly what it sounds like. A network of people who care for barn cats or community cats who are willing to take in an outdoor cat or two in emergency relocation situations.
Feral cat groups and rescues often have a hard time finding barn homes (or similar) for unadoptable cats that have to be relocated fast. Usually, this is because a property owner demands the cats to be removed or destroyed and rescues, shelters, and volunteers scramble to find a suitable outdoor home for them, such as barns.
Anyone who has a special place in their hearts for unowned cats are welcome to join to help these displaced cats find new outdoor homes!
Advantages of Taking in These Cats
By offering your barn or farm to a pair of feral cats forced to move from their original home, you are ensuring that your farm or barn or warehouse always has a few cats running around reducing rodent problems.
You’re saving their lives.
You’re ensuring that kittens and adoptable cats get placed into homes and giving these unadoptable ones a place where they feel safe and are well cared for.
No one expects people to take in 30 cats to their barns or business. However, it’s a sad fact of life that a barn cat will not live as long as an indoor pet, and barns and farms always need cats.
Instead of letting your cats breed to replace lost barn cats, thus contributing to the overpopulation of cats in the United States, how about saving cats already born with no place to go?
Requirements
- Commitment to caring for these cats, feral or not. (Food, water, deworming, emergency vet care).
- Following relocation protocols (may depend on the rescue, or you can follow mine)
- Have a safe outdoor home environment for the cats (i.e. barns, warehouses, sheds, ranches)
Relocation is a LAST Resort
Relocating feral and community cats should never be considered lightly. Outdoor cats are often very attached to their territory and are NOT bonded to people. Relocating them is a difficult process that must have a proper acclimation period, and even then, the more feral they are, the more relocating might fail.
When a cat is relocated without a proper acclimation period, they will usually try to find their way to their home territory. They rarely make it because they end up hurt or killed attempting it.
With an acclimation period, your success rate goes up. If you take in two cats from the same colony, your success rate goes up. But it is never 100% guaranteed.
Another consideration is that when a feral or community cat colony is relocated, the original territory is now vacant of cats. New cats will start moving into that area.
Relocation is not an approved way of dealing with feral cat overpopulation because of new cats moving in. But sometimes, it must be done.
Want to Save a Life?
Don’t have time to volunteer or TNR, but want to make a difference in a feral cat’s life?
Join the Barn Cat Network FB Group! Take in a pair of community cats who have nowhere else to go!
Lovies!
