Peggy is definitely an only cat, so taking in more (as ferals, or as shelter cats) is a bit of a no-no.
However, I was sorely tempted a few years ago.
Background: I go to France on holiday with my parents every year (I know, but they're good company). One of our favourite places is in the Alps, a campsite about 5000ft above sea-level.
We were camping there about 6 years ago, and we had decided to go off on one of our long walks. We had got to a small bridge literally 100 yards up the road, and above the roaring of the river below, we could hear this mewing noise.
We looked all around the bridge, but couldn't source the noise. I then managed to climb down onto a ledge to look under the bridge. There weren’t any trolls there, but there WAS a tiny tabby kitten. She/he was crying and mewing like she was hurt. She was also sitting on a VERY small tussock right over the river. I didn't want to scare her into jumping so I moved very slowly, and held out my hand. She LEPT onto it, and ran up my arm using her claws. This was in the summer, so she left a few holes in my arm... She was on my shoulders when I decided to move a bit quicker. She clung on. After a nervous (and painful) scrabble up the slope, I managed to get back onto the road. She leapt down, and rubbed herself against my legs. She was thin as a rake and very very small.
We carried her a short distance to where there were some people picnicking in a clearing. In our best French (rubbish!), we tried to ask them if they would look after it. They all nodded "oui oui" but when we walked off, the kitten raced after us. We tried twice more, but each time it followed us. So we just kept on walking with this dear thing mewing all the time and so on. We tried to carry it, but it didn't like that, so we tried putting her into our big rucksack, she HATED that! For 5km she followed us, until we got to a small car park. We took her over to a couple and again tried to explain, would they mind looking after this petite chat. They agreed, and they even said they would take her back to the campsite. We were a bit dubious, but they seemed very friendly anyway. 5 hours later we had done our walk and we were exhausted, but happy to return to the campsite. As we rounded the corner, there was our little friend half in and half out of a HUGE mixing bowl and clearly enjoying herself. Quite why she was in a bowl, we don’t know but hey. Turns out the couple were as good as their word and they had returned her to the campsite. Claudine (as she was now known) had eaten a large tin of tuna, and chopped chicken and drunk half a pint of water. The next day the French equivalent of the RSPCA was going to come to pick her up. This is partly why we ended up getting Pegs, because we couldn't take "Claudine" home with us.
Moving on 3 years.
My parents returned to the same campsite and there was the cat we had rescued, now a huge tabby with a name change. Apparently the campsite owner wanted to keep the cat, and not give it to the shelter. He also didn’t like Claudine, so she was re-named Schweppes.
In 2006:
In 2009:
We’ve seen not her since, as she’s now living in Marseilles.
