To feed or not to feed: helping without harm

“To feed or not to feed” is the wrong question. The real choice is: feed haphazardly - or feed as part of a programme, together with sterilisation. Felicia Nutter’s four-year controlled experiment (North Carolina State University) compared nine cat colonies: sterilised colonies shrank and settled, intact ones grew. Her reproduction data explains the price of doing nothing: a female averages 1.4 litters a year, three kittens each - and 75% of those kittens die before six months. Feeding without sterilisation manufactures kittens that die in the street.

Paired with sterilisation, feeding does remarkable things: the University of Central Florida colony shrank 85% over 23 years, and the Key Largo cats went from 455 to 206 while getting healthier (both programmes are documented in peer-reviewed journals). A fixed feeding point is also a tool: cats, as Alley Cat Allies puts it, “think with their stomachs” and stay where the food is - which means they can be counted, trapped for sterilisation and returned.

How to feed properly

• One place, one time, daylight - every day, year-round.
• Portion: about half a cup of dry food per adult cat per day (Alley Cat Allies; 15% more in cold weather).
• The 30-minute rule: gone in 15 - add; left after 30 - remove and reduce. Never leave food out: leftovers feed rats, not cats.
• Reusable bowls, not disposable plates: litter around the spot is complaint fuel (ASPCA).
• A covered, raised feeding station, away from bird feeders; clear both food and packaging.
• On the label look for the word “complete”. “Premium” and “holistic” are just words with no standard behind them (WSAVA).

What must never end up in the bowl

• Onion and garlic in any form: under a teaspoon of cooked onion is enough for a cat, and the signs appear only days later - nobody connects them to the “kind” dinner (Merck Veterinary Manual; veterinary toxicologists Gwaltney-Brant and Hayes).
• Grapes and raisins: more than one per 4.5 kg of body weight already risks a dog’s kidneys (Merck).
• Milk: adult cats lack lactase; the upset arrives 8–12 hours later, so the connection stays invisible (FOUR PAWS). Water is always better.
• Bones, cooked or raw - injuries and obstruction (ASPCA).
• Fatty restaurant scraps - the classic cause of pancreatitis in dogs (Jörg Steiner, Merck).
• Chocolate (especially dark), raw yeast dough, anything salted or smoked.

When not to feed

Food is withheld for 24 hours before trapping for sterilisation (water always stays) - a hungry cat enters the trap, and anaesthesia needs an empty stomach; warn everyone else who feeds the spot, because one kind neighbour’s bowl cancels the surgery (Alley Cat Allies). An important correction to the folk “12 hours fasting before anaesthesia”: per the AAHA protocol adults fast 6–12 hours, but kittens and puppies under 8 weeks or 2 kg only 1–2 hours - their blood sugar crashes. And an animal that is vomiting, injured, or may have swallowed a bone goes to a vet, not to a bowl.

Winter and summer

In winter - bigger portions, wet food digests easiest, water twice a day in a deep plastic bowl. In the shelter - straw, and never hay, blankets or towels: they soak up moisture and turn the shelter into a cold compress (Alley Cat Allies - the fact most articles get wrong). In summer - shade, feeding at dusk, cleared by morning before the flies wake.

Neighbours and the law

Conflict around feeding is almost always about mess and rats - that is, portions and cleanup, not cats. Europe answers differently: Italy registers colonies and protects caretakers by law, Greece assigned the duty to municipalities, some German cities ban feeding - and the bans fail: cats move to the garbage and complaints go up (Alley Cat Allies takes the argument apart point by point). In Montenegro, per the published 2019 review, only 28% of municipalities had any street-animal strategy and not one supported cat sterilisation programmes - but ten said they would, given support. Until the programmes exist, organised feeders are the system.

Two futures to choose from: Kosovo has over 50,000 street dogs at an 11% sterilisation rate - open landfills feed them; Sofia, over eleven years of catch-neuter-return, went from 11,000 street dogs to 3,600. Feed on schedule, keep the spot clean - and sterilise.