My suggestion would be to spay the females and neuter the males. I am not aware of any dietary fix for female (or male) feline fertility.
Let me start by saying that I have loved both cats that have adopted me in my life. They were unique individuals, and I cried when each one died.
But they are an ecological disaster directly tied to human overpopulation (in an ecological or animal concentration sense). Their numbers, especially feral populations, are directly tied to the success of the human environment off of which they live. There shouldn't be as many cats in the world as there are, ecologically speaking, just as there shouldn't be the number of obese, belligerent trash pandas ripping apart cans in Toronto.
Both are cute. Both are symptoms of an ongoing ecological disaster.
What also doesn't help is when humans anthropomorphise their animals to the extent that they not only refuse to "alter" them surgically, they try to give their felines "ethical" alternatives to their obligatory carnivore diet, which literally starves them and makes them kill more, because they need to eat as well as play.
But they are apex predators for their weight
class, and they punch well above it, too. Don't misunderstand. I am not the Cruella
de Vil of kittens (though hmmm... overabundance as opportunity... as long as we use
hypoallergenic cat pelts... no, bad Chris *smack*... okay, I'm back). But our perception of things on a grass-roots level is kinda like trying to judge climate with only some weather reports to read.
And in my parent's urban house, connected to the overpopulated sewer system and surrounded by dumpster-using restaurants on our laneway, I was always delighted when
Ash, my Russian Blue/Grey Tabby mix, would find another
mouse. I knew when this would happen because he was a noisy hunter, and a noisier eater. Never found more than a smear of blood, though... well, except for when he was interrupted and left decapitated corpses in my shoes for me to find
the icky way. That, and guarding food stores, are where cats shine.
But keeping an outdoor population is really not great. My eldest aunt on my mom's side feeds the feral population out her back door that started with a pregnant feral ginger she just couldn't allow to starve one winter. This was a decade or more ago. In addition to the swarms of inbred feral furballs she feeds, families of skunks, possums, and raccoons regularly sup in her backyard. It is crazy behaviour, but it does illustrate the issue. She is by far and away not the only crazy cat lady doing exactly this.
Which is not to cast aspersions by any means. You obviously care about the welfare of these felines. With that in mind, I strongly urge you to fix as many of these cats as you can. They can breed twice to three times in a year, with the latter more likely the earlier the spring and the longer the fall. If you delay, next year you could be facing many too many cats to deal with in as humane a manner as you like.
Seriously, there's no reason for people in any proximity to any urban area to breed cats, or to let them breed. The artists who farm that my much better half works with are regularly "donated"
city cats because they live on a farm and they'll pose no problem. They are typically tossed from moving vehicles. Sometimes, those vehicles slow down. They can lose two to three cats in a bad season, from fights with other predators, or being in the wrong place when farm equipment passes over a field.
So by reducing feline overpopulation, we can better care for the cats that will inevitably show up anyways, and we get to have other nice things, like songbirds, amphibians, a complex food web...
As to associated costs with spaying/neutering, I would see if there are any spay/neuter programs in your area. In some places it is such an issue that it is easier and far more humane to offer subsidised surgeries than to operate kill shelters.
Earlier in my life, I too was opposed to animal alteration for human benefit. That's how I saw neutering our Golden Retriever, which didn't happen, and thankfully we never had health problems with him that way. That's also how I saw spaying my chihuahua/maltipoo puppies, which didn't work out so well. Typically, if they don't use their equipment, it's more prone to cancers, which is what happened in that case.
Basically, there are already too many cats, both on your acreage and in the world. I think the best thing is for people to see surgical intervention in this issue as the best kindness that can be done to prevent fuelling those kill-shelter fires and devastating our natural ecology.
It's a difficult situation. I wish you the best of luck.
-CK
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