We have a few barn cats here that came with the property. Just a male an older female. We have had several different males here, seems when one has done his duty and all the kittens arrive, the next suitor shows up lol. I try not to get attached but when you see the kittens grow from tiny tiny to big cats and running around playing and chasing the horses, and just having fun. Its hard not to.
4 years later we still have the original mom, her first litter from 3 years ago (3 females) and all of their kids around. They are smart and stay in the barn, and somtimes go into the woods behind our house. And on rainy days they come up to the house and sleep under the trailer. I think you should be ok letting them roam if you are away from busy roads or neighbors, ours occassionly come into the house (carefull, thats how we wound up with a litter of kittens born in the house!) It seems our major problem with our outdoor cats is they always want inside, even if they are not friendly. And then trying to get a very angry scared cat outside, well its not fun lol
We just lost 2 kittens this week
Both ran over by the neighbors were we could see their little bodies from right outside our window
I could not stand to see them left out, so we have them buried under their favorite tree together. We also have one kitten still unaccounted for, and have had several other (kittens from last year) that have just disapeared and never see them again. Just have to hope they found good homes
I think if you can get kittens and have they locked up so they know where home is, they should be fine. The kittens around here, the friendly ones stick around and the not so nice ones usually move on. And if all else fails you could keep them in the barn during the day, and bring them in the house at night (or in a stall/tack room/etc) Seems that when bad things tend to happen to them.
Jamie