By LOIS KINDLE
Some area farms and businesses are controlling their snake and rodent populations, thanks to relocated feral cats from Feline Folks.
The Sun City Center-based nonprofit organization is known for trapping, neutering, vaccinating and returning these free-roaming felines to a safe habitat, where their care is managed by volunteers. Some who become socialized by volunteer foster folks actually end up being adopted.
It’s also known for re-homing cats for people who can no longer care for them.
Now, a relatively new initiative called Backyard to Farmyard is gaining traction for the placement of some of Feline Folks’ older cats who need a safe outdoor environment, where they can earn their keep as farm or rural business “helpers.”
The organization is currently seeking volunteers to reach out to local farms and rural businesses they know who can use a hand with rodent and snake control.
Feline Folks will provide all of its usual services to trap and then fully vaccinate, spay or neuter feral cats. In this new program, the cats stay in a provided kennel inside a barn or other shelter on the prospective property for two weeks, where they can be fed and adjust to their new “home.” Food and litter are also provided.
After a few weeks, these cats, which are natural mousers, are freed to roam and hunt on the property but also have their place to return to for shelter, food and water, as needed.
“Having a cat [or cats] on the premises cuts down on the rodent and snake population,” said Laurel Swift, a 12-year Feline Folks volunteer who coordinates Backyard to Farmyard with fellow volunteer Linda Couture. “But if it doesn’t work out, we will take the cats back.”
Amanda Gary owns five acres in the Ft. Lonesome area, and she recently accepted four feral cats from Feline Folks to go along with her six rescues.
Tucker, a feral cat who used to roam the Nantucket neighborhood in Kings Point, now lives on a farm in the Ft. Lonesome area, where he will help control the rodent and snake population. Thanks to the Feline Folks Backyard to Farmyard program, he was relocated there.
One of the males in the group from Feline Folks was a neighborhood feral named Tucker who annoyed his Nantucket neighbors with his constant vocalizing. He was trapped, neutered and vaccinated, but the neighborhood didn’t want him back. So now, on the farm, he can yack all he wants.
Amanda said she took him out to her farm property, where he and the others from the nonprofit organization were kept in dog crates in her barn to let them get acclimated and established.
“After 10 days, we let them go, and, as expected, they came back for food and water,” Gary said. “When we move all our animals out there and set up a feed shed, they’ll be helping us with rodent control. They’ll even help keep snakes away from our eggs and chase squirrels away from our fruit and nut trees.
“The cats are very beneficial to our farm,” she said.
To learn more, to volunteer or to donate to Feline Folks, email info@felinefolks.us or visit www.felinefolks.us/. The group also has a Facebook page under Feline Folks of Sun City Center.