Starting a Cat Colony Care Group: A Practical Guide for Beginners

You noticed a few cats behind the restaurant. Or in the parking lot. Or under your deck. You started leaving out food. Then more showed up. Then a couple of kittens. Sound familiar?

This is how it starts for most of us. You didn't plan to run a cat colony. You just couldn't walk past a hungry animal. But now you're in it, and you're starting to realize that doing this well takes more than a bag of kibble and good intentions.

This guide walks you through turning "I feed some cats" into an organized care group that actually makes a difference. It's based on our own experience managing colonies in a small town in Spain, where we went from "there are cats everywhere" to a structured TNR program that's made a real, measurable impact.

First Things First: Assess What You're Dealing With

Before you recruit a single person, take stock of the situation. Spend a week or two observing and writing things down.

How many cats are there? This is harder than it sounds. Cats that look identical from a distance turn out to be different animals. Cats you've never seen before show up at 11pm. A rough count is fine to start, but try to get as accurate a picture as you can.

For each cat you can identify, note down a physical description, where you usually see them, whether they look healthy, and whether they already have an ear tip (meaning they've been through TNR before). If you can get photos, even better. A blurry phone photo of a tabby is worth more than trying to remember which tabby had the notch in its left ear.

Also take note of the environment. Are there safe spots for feeding stations? Any hazards like busy roads? Are there neighbors who might be friendly, hostile, or already feeding the cats themselves? All of this matters when you start planning.

This early documentation becomes your baseline. Six months from now, you'll want to look back and see how far you've come. We started with a messy spreadsheet for this. It didn't last. Whatever system you use, start recording from day one. You'll thank yourself later.

Find Your People

You don't need an army. Honestly, 3 to 5 reliable people is enough to run a solid colony care operation. The keyword there is reliable. One person who shows up every single day is worth more than ten people who show up once and disappear.

Where to find them? Start close to home. Talk to neighbors, especially anyone you've seen putting out food for strays. They're already invested, they just might not know anyone else is doing the same thing. Local Facebook groups and community boards are good too. Post something simple: "I'm caring for a group of stray cats near [location] and looking for others who want to help. No experience needed."

Veterinary clinics are another great source. Ask if you can leave a small flyer. Vets see people who care about animals all day long, and they're often happy to connect people.

Don't underestimate word of mouth either. Once people know you're "the cat person," they'll start sending others your way. This can be a blessing and a curse, but mostly a blessing.

One thing to look for: people who are kind, consistent, and not prone to drama. Cat rescue groups can attract strong personalities and strong emotions. That's understandable, but the groups that last are the ones where people can disagree without it turning into a war. Set that tone early.

Divide Responsibilities (and Keep Them Simple)

Once you have a few people, figure out who does what. This doesn't need to be formal. No one needs a title or a badge. But someone should own each key responsibility so nothing falls through the cracks.

Here are the roles that matter for a small colony care group:

Feeding coordinator. This person makes sure someone feeds the colony every day, at roughly the same time. They manage the schedule, find substitutes when someone's sick or on vacation, and keep an eye on food supplies. Consistent feeding isn't just about nutrition. It's how you monitor the colony. If a cat stops showing up, you notice. If a new cat appears, you notice. Daily feeding is daily surveillance.

TNR coordinator. This is the person who organizes trapping sessions, books vet appointments, arranges transport, and makes sure cats recover properly before being returned. They don't have to do all the trapping themselves, but they keep the process moving. More on TNR in the next section.

Record keeper. Someone needs to track which cats have been fixed, who's had medical treatment, expenses, donations, the lot. This role often falls on whoever started the group, but it doesn't have to. What matters is that the information lives somewhere everyone can access, not just in one person's head or one person's phone.

This is exactly the kind of problem we built Pawsies to solve. One shared place where everyone can see which cats have been treated, who's doing what, and what still needs to happen. It's free for small groups and works on any phone.

Foster coordinator. If your group takes in kittens or friendly strays for adoption, someone needs to manage that pipeline: finding foster homes, matching animals to fosters, tracking who has what, and coordinating handoffs.

One person can wear multiple hats, especially at the start. The point isn't bureaucracy. It's making sure that when something needs doing, there's a clear answer to "whose job is this?"

Set Up Your TNR Pipeline

TNR (Trap-Neuter-Return) is the single most important thing your group will do. It's also backed by a growing body of peer-reviewed research showing it works.¹ Everything else, the feeding, the shelters, the record keeping, supports this core mission. Until every cat in your colony is fixed, the population will keep growing, and you'll be running just to stand still.

Here's what you need to get started:

Find a vet. Look for clinics that offer low-cost spay/neuter for community cats. Many areas have dedicated TNR clinics or programs through organizations like the ASPCA, local humane societies, or independent nonprofits. In some places, municipal programs cover the cost entirely. Ask around. Other colony caretakers in your area probably already know where to go.

Get traps. You can buy humane box traps (Tomahawk and Tru-Catch are popular brands), but many rescue organizations and animal control offices loan them out for free. Start by asking local shelters and TNR groups. If you need to buy your own, one or two traps is enough to start. You can always get more as your group grows.

Learn the basics of trapping. The core process is straightforward: set a baited trap near the feeding station, wait for the cat to enter, transport to the vet, recovery period, return to the colony. But there are nuances that make a big difference.

Withholding food for 24 hours before trapping makes cats hungrier and more likely to enter traps.² Sardines, tuna, or (oddly enough) fried chicken make great bait. Cover traps with a towel or sheet once a cat is caught, as this calms them down significantly.³ Never leave traps unattended for long, especially in hot or cold weather. And keep quiet during trapping sessions. Put your phone on silent. The less noise, the better your results.

Alley Cat Allies and Neighborhood Cats both offer free TNR training and certification programs online. They're worth doing even if you've already trapped a few cats. You'll pick up techniques that make the process faster and less stressful for everyone involved. And if anyone questions whether TNR is the right approach, you can point them to surveys showing that roughly 7 in 10 Americans support TNR over the alternative of catching and euthanizing community cats.⁴

Plan your recovery space. After surgery, cats need 24 to 72 hours of monitored recovery before being returned.⁵ A quiet room, a garage, or even a bathroom works. Keep them in the trap (with a towel or newspaper lining) to minimize stress. Provide water and a small amount of food once they're alert. Watch for any signs of complications like excessive bleeding or lethargy.

Ear tipping. This is standard practice during TNR. The vet removes about 1cm from the tip of one ear (usually the left) while the cat is under anesthesia. It's painless and heals quickly, and it's the universal sign that a cat has been fixed.⁶ This prevents the same cat from being trapped and put under anesthesia again, which is important for their safety and saves you a wasted vet visit.

Keep records of every cat that goes through TNR. Date trapped, vet used, procedures performed, any medical notes, date returned. This is non-negotiable. Without records, you'll end up retrapping cats that have already been fixed, losing track of who needs follow-up care, and having no way to show the impact of your work when you need to justify your efforts to neighbors, local authorities, or potential donors.

For larger colonies (15+ cats), you probably won't get them all in one go. That's normal. Work in batches, take breaks of a week or so between sessions so the remaining cats don't become trap-shy, and be patient. Some colonies take months to fully process. The key is persistence, not perfection.

Keep Records From Day One

This deserves its own section because it's where most small groups fall apart.

Here's what typically happens: you start with a notebook. Then someone creates a spreadsheet. Then a second person creates a different spreadsheet. Someone else keeps notes on their phone. Another person just remembers everything. Within six months, no one knows which information is current, and critical details like "did this cat get its second round of vaccines?" become unanswerable questions.

For every cat, you should be tracking:

• A name or ID (even a nickname works)
• Physical description and a photo
• Location where they're usually found
• Sex
• Spay/neuter status and date
• Vaccinations and dates
• Any medical issues or treatments
• Temperament (feral, semi-feral, friendly)
• Current status (in colony, in foster, adopted, deceased)

For the group as a whole, track:

• Expenses (food, vet bills, traps, supplies)
• Donations and income
• Volunteer schedules and contact info

The format matters less than the consistency. But it really does help to have one system that everyone can access from their phone, because that's what people have with them when they're at the feeding station at 7am and spot a new cat.

This is honestly the main reason we built Pawsies. We lived through the scattered-information problem ourselves and it drove us crazy. One shared platform where every cat has a profile, medical events are logged as they happen, and everyone on the team can see the same information. You can even generate shareable lists of colony cats, which comes in handy when working with vets or local authorities. It's free for groups managing a single colony, and it works on any device with a browser.

Whatever tool you use, the principle is the same: write it down, put it where everyone can find it, and do it now rather than later.

Talk to Your Neighbors

This can make or break your colony care group. Seriously. Neighbor complaints are one of the most common reasons colony care efforts fall apart or get shut down.⁷ The good news is that most conflicts come from misunderstanding, not malice, and a little communication goes a long way.

Introduce yourself early. Explain what you're doing and why. Most people have no idea what TNR is, but when you explain that you're preventing more kittens from being born, reducing fighting and yowling, and keeping the area clean, they tend to come around.

The key points to get across: feeding a managed colony doesn't cause the population to grow. What causes growth is unspayed cats breeding. In fact, removing cats without neutering them just creates a vacancy that new cats fill, a well-documented phenomenon called the "vacuum effect."⁸ TNR is what actually stops the cycle. Once the cats are sterilized and vaccinated, the colony stabilizes and gradually shrinks over time through natural attrition. No more kittens, no more mating behaviors, less noise, less conflict. Long-term studies have shown TNR can reduce colony populations by 85% or more when sustained over time.⁹

Keep your feeding stations clean and tidy. Nothing turns a neighbor against you faster than a mess. Pick up uneaten food within 30 minutes,¹⁰ use proper bowls (not scattered kibble on the ground), and keep the area looking like someone responsible is managing it.

If you're working on someone else's property, get written permission. This protects you and the cats. If the property changes hands or someone gets upset, having documentation matters.

And when neighbors do have complaints, listen to them. "The cats are digging in my garden" is a solvable problem (citrus peels, dedicated litter areas, physical barriers). Meeting people halfway turns potential enemies into allies, and sometimes into volunteers.

Handle the Money

Even a small colony care group spends money. Food, vet bills, traps, shelters, medications. It adds up faster than you'd expect.

For the first few months, most groups just split costs informally among members. That works fine when it's three friends and a bag of kibble, but it doesn't scale. At some point, you'll want to set up something more structured.

Options, roughly in order of complexity:

Shared fund. Everyone contributes to a common pot. One person manages it and tracks expenses. Simple, flexible, but depends on trust and good bookkeeping.

Partner with an existing rescue. Many established organizations will act as a fiscal sponsor, allowing donations to your group to be tax-deductible. This can unlock grant funding and larger donations that individuals wouldn't make otherwise.

Form a nonprofit. This is usually overkill for small colony care groups, but if your operation grows significantly, it might make sense down the road. The paperwork varies by country, but it's a real commitment and not something to rush into.

Whatever approach you choose, track every expense and every donation. You'll need this for accountability to donors, for making the case for grants or sponsorships, and honestly just for knowing where the money goes. Pawsies has built-in financial tracking for this exact reason: rescue groups need to see at a glance what they're spending and on what.

Plan for the Long Haul

Colony care isn't a weekend project. Managed colony cats that are sterilized, vaccinated, and regularly fed can live 7 to 10 years or more,¹¹ so your group needs to function not just next month, but next year and the year after that.

Build in redundancy. What happens when your main feeder goes on vacation? What if your TNR coordinator moves away? Have backup people for every critical role. Cross-train so that at least two people know how to do each job.

Watch for burnout. This is real and it's common. Colony care is emotionally and physically demanding. You'll deal with sick cats, dying cats, people who dump kittens, neighbors who complain, and the general feeling that you're never doing enough. Check in with your group regularly. Celebrate wins, even small ones. And give people permission to take breaks without guilt.

Stay on top of newcomers. Managed colonies aren't closed systems. New cats will show up, whether they wander in from other areas or get dumped by people who couldn't be bothered to find them a proper home. Have a plan for quickly assessing and TNR-ing new arrivals before they start breeding.

Do a colony census periodically. Every few months, compare your records against what you actually see at the feeding station. Are all your known cats still present? Has anyone disappeared? Any new faces? This is much easier when your records are up to date, and much harder when they're scattered across three different notebooks.

The groups that last are the ones that build systems rather than relying on heroes. If your colony care depends entirely on one person's willpower and memory, it's fragile. If it depends on a shared process that any committed person can step into, it's resilient.

You Don't Need to Be Perfect to Start

Your group will be messy at first. You'll lose track of which cat is which. You'll forget who was supposed to feed on Tuesday. Someone will trap a cat that's already been fixed. You'll have arguments about names, about priorities, about whether that tabby is a new cat or one you've seen before.

All of this is normal. Every colony care group goes through it.

The cats are better off with your imperfect help than with no help at all. A colony that's mostly TNR'd is infinitely better than one where nobody's doing anything. A feeding schedule that occasionally gets missed is still better than no feeding schedule. Records that are 80% complete are vastly better than no records.

Start where you are. Use what you have. Bring in the people you can find. Improve as you go. The cats aren't waiting for you to have a perfect system. They just need someone to show up.

And if you're looking for a free, simple way to get your records organized from day one, give Pawsies a try. We built it because we needed it ourselves, and we'd love for it to help your group too.