Leaving them without food at night although a good plan, well it backfired on me this morning at least. When I opened up the gate to go into the back to feed, there were babies everywhere. They were not in a good mood either LOL
I had Kota on lead and these three babies blocking our way, they were not moving. Nothing that I did seemed to matter to them because of their agitated state. Then two of them stopped stamping and turned around and I knew we were in trouble. As I fled past them with Kota reluctantly in tow- they let us both have it. Thankfully it was the babies and they are still just tooting instead of full-on spraying. Had it been mom and dad we would have really got a full frontal assault. All the yard cats moved rather quickly away from the stench and I had to wait for a few hours to go out and feed everyone.
I am still holding firm to not putting food out at night. Tomorrow, I will just have to be prepared to do battle if it comes to that. Not sure if a squirt bottle might move things along without incident. I will think of something to prevent another spray takedown. LOL
I think you’re right not to give in. They may become angry again, but they’ll learn to move on. They’ll be all right – though they may not like you anymore!
I often feed my ferals a wee bit of kibble just before I turn in at night, and I tell them they have to eat it all so the raccoons don’t get it, but they don’t listen to me. I’m talking 15 to 20 pieces of kibble! This morning, The Hubby found kibble in the bowls, and I got a lecture on to potential for attracting rats and raccoons and skunks and yadda yadda yadda…I just like going out there to hang with my babies! Guess I’d better get used to being empty-handed. Glad you didn’t get skunked!