A major update to the feral mama and kittens trapping epic. First, a quick summary of how this came about.
A young woman that lives behind me appealed for help. A feral mama cat had a litter of kittens in a large, open woodshed next to her house. She thought there were up to six kittens. I live virtually next door and have a trap, so I volunteered. That was about three weeks ago.
Mama is a small, fluffy Tortie, and she was extremely elusive. The first day I set out to trap, I caught three kittens: pale orange tabby, a little Tortie that looks like mama, and a brown tabby. I managed to tap into the local network of cat rescuers and TNR people, and one of them brought me a large upright cage to hold the kittens.
She also connected me to people that have a farm and will happily take mama and all the kittens. This area is overwhelmed with kittens. Kittens are being dumped all over the place and the shelter has been over capacity for a long time, so no animals can be taken there. Knowing I have a place for mama and the kittens is a huge relief.
After my initial good luck, I had no luck at all for the next ten or so days. I rarely saw mama and wasn’t catching sight of the remaining kittens, so I began to worry they were gone. I was having a major problem with ants. Every single place I left the cage, the food would be covered with ants.
I made some changes. I created a space up off the ground within the woodshed, on top of a pile of wood planks. It would be harder for a skunk to get up there, which was my main concern for leaving the trap set overnight. I was advised that I need to leave the trap overnight to get ferals. I created a water trap around the food by putting the food in a tiny bowl nestled inside a slightly larger bowl filled with water. That has worked well. I added tuna juice to the food to make it more enticing. The final step was to cover the trap with a light blanket to further disguise what it was.
I began leaving the trap in that new location overnight and immediately caught kitten #4, another orange tabby.
When I went to check the trap this morning, I had a strong premonition that I would catch mama cat. I was disappointed to find the trap empty, but decided to leave it as it was anyway. I ran some errands, got back a couple hours later as the day was getting hot. I thought I should check the trap as a precaution.
And I had caught mama!
Given how difficult it was to catch her, I took her straight to the vet’s to be spayed. The local animal rescue group provide me with a voucher, so it will only cost me $45, and the people with the farm said they would pay me back. Mama will probably be at the vet’s for a couple of days.
Meanwhile, I’ll keep trapping. Theoretically, there should be two more kittens to catch, both black.
I’ll be tremendously glad to be done with this project and have the family off to their new home. It’s been a lot of work taking care of and cleaning up after the kittens, and time-consuming having to haul the trap back and forth and setting it up and checking it. It’s eaten big chunks out of my daily schedule. For a good cause, of course, but still tiring.
It’s a good thing we’re too old to adopt any of these kittens. If we were fifteen years younger, I suspect I would not part with the Tortie and Randy has already fallen for the pale orange tabby. This little Tortie reminds me so much of our dear departed Saffy, also a Tortie. We trapped Saffy when she was six weeks old (a necessary rescue). She would hiss and spit at us so much that her first, temporary name was Spitfire. This little Tortie hisses at me nearly every time she sees me. “Do not touch! I am fierce!”
Once I’m done with mama and kittens, I’ll get back to my original TNR project to get some of the male cats running around here, so here’s a reminder link to my gofundme: https://www.gofundme.com/f/project-tnr-please-help-me-catch-and-neuter-tomcats
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