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We were trying to catch her last kitten. The other kittens have been caught and rehomed over the past week. Well, tonight we caught the mother by accident. We made the decision to keep her. We're hoping we can trap the last kitten coming to look for her. Even if the last kitten dies, it's imperative that we end the cycle of these litters being born. It was a tough decision. Fingers crossed the kitten comes around tonight.
I'm frustrated because the TNR requires an appointment in advance. If they don't take this mother tomorrow, I don't know what I'm going to do.
Keep your ears carefully "peeled" for the kitten's crying. Sometimes the wee ones' voices are so high-pitched it's easy to not hear them. The tricky part will of course be reuniting the two of them without the mother's escaping.
For at least the young-un it may be a blessing in disguise if the mama cat can't be TNR'd as soon as tomorrow. That's one more day of receiving nourishment the way nature intended.
Here's hoping this will be an easy sell to make to Bobbles!
2+ years ago I faced the same predicament with Blaliko (mom) and Seteria (daughter.) Five out of six kittens, born outside to their then-stray mother, were rounded up within the window of opportunity for easy re-homing. My agenda had called for all six to be caught and adopted, after which Blaliko could be spayed and I'd keep her. Naturally, fate had other plans and Blaliko was the next one to walk into the baited trap. Then her daughter was so skittish that it took another month and a half before she, too, was TNR'd. By that point Seteria was deemed well past the age where she could be taken elsewhere for fostering/adoption. So old softie me wound up with a two-fer. All of which is to say, anything can happen and usually does.
Big thanks for all that you do for the puddy tats.
If you have a trap, put a trail of food up into the last part where you put the main dish. The kitten will start eating a few bites and then get brave and walk all the way in to trip the door. We trapped a kitten that way one time.
You are doing the right thing, ending the string of kitten after kitten, most of which will die out there. Good for you.
Hope you catch the kitten and get the mom fixed. We did that to Mama Cat, and that ended her being pregnant constantly.
Goos job! I ran into the same appointment thing when I trapped a feral cat, and it really makes no sense, since you don't know when they'll take the bait. I had to keep her overnight in a room in the basement, in a crate since I didn't know her health status. I felt bad for the little girl, but she did OK, and she actually used the little pan I stuck in for a litterbox. Hoping the kitten will turn up right away!
Hopes - we did the same thing - we, too, were able to stop litter after litter. The mother was homeless. The father had a "home" (loose term), but he was an outdoor cat only and was allowed to roam the neighborhood as an intact male. He fathered uncountable litters throughout the neighborhood. So, we wanted to break at least part of that cycle.
After we caught three of the four kittens, we accidentally got the mother, too. So, getting the last kitten became a priority, and that elusive kitty was finally caught by some young neighborhood girls who made it a bound-and-determined goal. Yes, it was highly stressful and traumatic for that poor kitty to be chased and grabbed at. At the conclusion, what we adults didn't know was that she had dived into an armadillo hole trying to escape and one of the girls had reached in and pulled her out. Had we known that, we adults would have stopped the girls. Thankfully the armadillo had abandoned that hole.
I thought for sure that all that trauma would have negatively affected that kitten's personality, but it didn't, not at all. I believe that the reuniting of "Pearls" with her siblings and mother made her forget the whole ordeal or at least diminished it. But if the mother had not been here, I'm not sure how the kitten would have turned out, so I can't say that our way of getting her is recommended. Just relating an experience that did turn out well.
After the kittens were weaned, they were adopted out (about 9 weeks old). Because mature cats are harder to find homes for, the mother is still with us. But in December she might be going to the home that adopted "Pearls" (which is why I know "Pearls" turned out ok and is not a skittish kitty). I'm not holding my breath and have come to terms with the reality that the mother has already found her forever home here.
As for the father, before I could be bold and ignore the fact that he had owners and get him neutered, he disappeared. I'm saddened by that actually. I always felt he deserved better.
Thanks for the encouragement. I haven't been able to reach any of the rescue/shelters that do TNR. I left messages at all three of them. We didn't feed her last night because we hoped she'd have surgery this morning. I went and put litter, food and water in the cage this morning. It's on my neighbor's porch covered with one of my blankets. We're going to have to move it to a garage or shed tonight when my neighbor gets home. I talked to the "cat lady" who work at Petco and she said it might take a week or more for an appointment. She said to keep her trauma minimized by leaving her alone and only going to the cage to change water food and litter.
OMGoodness. This is insane. I couldn't reach anyone at the three rescue/shelters that do TNR. I drove to one in person and found the unreachable women just sitting at her desk doing nothing. I got an appointment for tomorrow morning, but they only accept feral cats in traps. They don't have traps. I spent the morning calling around at the other rescues looking for traps. No traps. I have to buy a $50 trap at home depot to get this mother spayed, but it will be a good investment since we have other ferals in the neighborhood.
That is crazy. You're a good person to do all that. And any TNR place I know of keeps traps on hand for a refundable deposit. But I don't understand why another type of carrier wouldn't be as good as a crate.
She said they used to rent traps, but they stopped because people weren't returning them. A refundable deposit would make more sense. If they made people put down a deposit for how much the trap costs, they wouldn't lost anything if traps aren't returned.
I have my trap. I found a two for one deal at Trader Horn. I'll try to take a picture of her tomorrow before I move her from the dog cage to the trap. (I hope I survive that encounter.) She'll be with me for 48 hours after the surgery before I can set her loose.
I hope the colony accepts her back smelling funny. Will they?
Let me tantrum. The neighbors who have the colony are acting weird. They gave us permission to raid their property any time day or night to look for cats and try to catch kittens. Today I went to tell them I caught one of the mothers. "It's not ours." I asked them how many cats they had. "We don't have any cats." I told them I was trying to get an idea of how many I need to catch. He looks at her, and she looks at him and shrugs her shoulders. These people feed these ferals twice a day and try to pretend they have NO IDEA how many adults and kittens there are.
Finally, they admitted there are three adults---two females and one male---and five kittens. He showed me where they live so it will be easier to catch them. I don't know if any of you remember a few years ago I confronted him and told him about the TNR program. I find out tonight that he caught four of them and just dropped them off. He didn't TNR them. I told him they put them to sleep and he insisted they take them.
I don't really care that they were PTS. I'm TNR'ing them because it's not my colony. But I can't understand the psyche of someone who feeds ferals out of compassion but have no problem just getting rid of them and putting them to sleep. And now they're pretending to have NO IDEA how many ferals they are feeding. Anyways, I'm not getting into it with them because I'm glad they're letting us on their property.
We all discussed if we caught someone's indoor/outdoor cat, and we all agree that any cat outside is fair game. I knocked on neighbors doors and told them what we're doing and asked them to show me their cats. Every single neighbor showed me their cats. LOL They all told me to do what we need to do. Everyone fully supports this effort.
When we're done with the immediate vicinity, I might take my show on the road and do the other side of the neighborhood where we found Bobbles.
I'm officially a Crazy Cat Lady!
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