Hello. Thanks for writing in. It is often difficult to determine why a cat loses their voice. Most of the time, it is due to an upper respiratory infection, but it can be due to trauma, cancer or Feline Leukemia/AIDS. They can definitely catch leukemia, AIDS and upper respiratory infections from feral cats. Sometimes the voice will come back in a week or two. Sometimes, it may not completely come back. I have your vet check her out. I would most likely check her for leukemia and AIDS and put her on antibiotics to start with. A full oral exam under sedation and x-rays of the throat may be indicated as some point. Please let me know if you have any other questions. Hope this helps.

I agree that you shouldn't have to take care of these feral animals also. Have you tried talking to your neighbors about the problem. Unfortunately, if they keep on feeding the cats, the problem will never get better, and will just possibly get worse. I was talking about a trap-neuter-release program for the feral cats, not your pets. I would check online to see if there are any such programs in your area. They will usually do all the work. Have you tried calling your local city animal control (not the same thing as the SPCA or Humane Society shelters)?

http://www.homeatlastrescue.org/html/aboutcats/feral.html

http://www.feralcat.com/acafcmc.html

I do not know of a brochure or flier, but the 2 websites above have some good information. Odd. Every municipality should have a divison of health and humane serivices (or something to that effect) that has animal control officers employed by the city. I would check in your local phone book to be sure.