Cat people, please help. Two feral males hanging around...

[Flaxbee]

Forgive me if I give a little backstory, I hope it won't be too long. My husband and I are in the small town from hell, renting a house, and we want to leave as soon as possible. It was a mistake for us to come here. We're hoping we can leave in 2-3 months. We tried and tried and tried to keep our cat number low, but a pregnant momma brought us her babies over a year ago and we succumbed (we had 3, then took her and her babies in and now have 7).

Of the 7 cats, 5 are indoor only, two are indoor/outdoor (indoor every night at dark, one of them is in most of the time anyway, but the BIG, neutered, 20lb male named Ivan who was born here and whom we adopted right after moving in freaks out if he can't pee outside. Weird, but there it is, so in and out he goes during the daylight hours, from about 11am to 6pm each day).

Because of the two who come and go during the day, I leave food and water out on the enclosed porch with the door propped open, and often will place the other cats' "leftovers" (moist food they don't entirely finish) outside.

As a consequence, two ferals - one definitely a boy, one maybe a female but s/he is almost as big as Ivan so I'm guessing male -- stop by to eat. They've gotten pretty used to the food, and as it's cold out, I'm not going to just stop feeding them, but there's no way we can take them with us when we move.

What I'd like to do is trap-neuter(or spay)-release. I of course will feel like I'm abandoning the cats after doing this, but there are a lot of mice/rats around (we're in a rural area) and I think they'd have plenty of food even without me. I just want to prevent an explosion of kitties in the coming months.

And this area has NO shelters - especially for semi-feral cats.

SO- what is the best way to lure a wary cat into a Havahart trap? Stop the food for a few days and hope s/he is hungry enough to venture in? All those experienced with using humane cat traps, PLEASE give me some advice. And maybe a little reassurance that I'm doing the right thing, if possible.

Thanks. I'm also posting this in the Pets forum.