People who worry about cats dying outdoors are not on the same page with me.
First off, I adore and admire cats. They are cool creatures. One day 25 years ago, a little black/white female wandered into our backyard, looked up, meowed, and we fed her. We went away for a month, and found 6 kittens. We fixed the mommy and the 5 females and let them stay. Outdoors. The male, we did not fix. He didn’t last. I know he caroused, looking for pussy and fights, and got his ass kicked nightly. But he lost his life when the Humane Society director, who lives up the street, ran over him. His name was “Cowboy”, age 3.
Since then, we have always had only fixed females; and we name them after baseball players (”Kirby”, “Felix Jose”, “Grace”, “Griffey”, “Luise”, “Alex”, “Jeter”, “Brandelion”, “JJ”, “Tatoo”, etc). The original 6 lived an average of 10 years. The mama and one of her calico daughters lived 17 and 16 years, respectively. Their job was to keep the property free of rodents, snakes and even grasshoppers. They did it well.
In our severe winters, they hunkered down in a shed, or under a porch.
In a few cases, we have taken kittens off other people’s hands, or gone to the humane society, in order to keep our numbers about right. But lately, we have taken kittens from a guy who has a female barn cat who regularly gives birth. These are pretty hard to tame, but they have great outdoor skills bred right in.
With cats like ours, it pays to take the “easy come, easy go” posture. And enjoy them while you have them. I love the loyalty ours show. It is fun to drive home and have them greet us. They recognize the sounds of our vehicles, and always seem to be waiting when we arrive.
Indoor cats are amusing, but they own you. Outdoor fixed female cats do a job, and can fend for themselves. If you want to go away, just leave them a bucket of water and a bucket of dry food. They may act pissed at you when you return, but that is just to maintain their petulant image.
Outdoor cats are severely endangered here, from some of the things I mentioned and diseases that they catch from other cats.
WE had a lot of house cats, 7 at one count. Our big neutered male Maine Coon, Junior, insisted on becoming an outdoor cat so we gave up and let him. 6 months later I found him dead in the flower bed, not sure what happened, probably hit by a car and tried to get back to the house. I still miss him.