more stray cats

It has started to get very cold here, and a few nights ago a tiny kitten and his mother showed up on our doorstep. We put out one of our cat carriers with a warm blanket in it, and they slept there. The next morning we took both of them to the shelter.

I'm reluctant to take an animal from its home area and put it in a cage somewhere, especially at a shelter that does kill some of its animals, but in their case I think it made sense. The kitten was still young and cute and could likely still get used to people, so he seems very likely to be adopted. The mother is healthy-looking and attractive, and she was somewhat open to human touch. Plus she looked like she might be pregnant again. The shelter says they have a very good adoption rate, so I think it was the right thing to do in their case.

Now there's another cat outside our door. We had seen it hanging around with those other two, and we suspect it is an older kitten from the same mother. This guy is somewhat afraid of people, and does not like being inside at all. I don't quite know what to do with him (or her), because his extra wildness seems to make it less adoptable and thus more likely to get killed. But it is getting really cold outside, and he clearly wants something from us. He looks well-fed, so he must be getting food from somewhere.

My best idea is maybe to put together some kind of more permanent shelter for him, but I don't really want to start feeding him. I'd kind of like to get him fixed and immunized too. But I'm kind of averse to spending so much time and money on this guy, for fear that soon I'd be doing it for more of them.

Ugh.