cattavorting

[darkoshi]

Yesterday when looking through the motion-activated clips from the video cams, I was a bit surprised to see what looked like the same white pick-up truck driving by several times in a row.

Today I was surprised to see six.. SIX!!! cats cavorting in my front yard. The last couple of weeks, I'd been smelling cat urine outside the front & side & garage doors. I'd also heard a cat yowling at night. But I'd thought it was a single cat. SIX!!! Although it may be a single female cat, being following around by all the male cats in the neighborhood.

Yesterday, I'd considered calling the county's Animal Care number to ask about their trap-neuter-return program. But that's when I thought there was one cat. How the heck would you catch 6 cats, or if only one, the right one?

Comments

[redsixwing]

That's a lot of cats! :o

I did a round of TNR when I moved into my house, because it was trying to develop a cat colony and: no. The humane society lent me three traps with a statement that I'd get maybe one cat, and I brought them back with three cats in them.

Unsolicited TNR advice below. :)

Use wet food. If you've been setting out any food for them, use the stuff they really like. If you haven't been setting out food for them, set out wet food and let them get to like it before using it as bait.

Catch the cat you can catch. If you get a female, great! TNR that kitty. If you get a male, also great! TNR that kitty too.

If you get a Bond kitty who can steal the bait without tripping the trap, try making an unexpected noise while they're backing out. Guaranteed they'll jump, and that'll probably be enough to trip the mechanism.

If your cats are feral and you don't trust them to be picked up with good manners, ask the vet not to give them the wake-up shot and put them in a carrier, but stick 'em straight back in the trap. Those have a release mechanism you can work from the opposite side of the box. When the kitty is awake and wants nothing more than to be out of the little box, open the door and let 'em run.

[darkoshi]

Thanks for the advice. How does it work with releasing stray or feral cats after the surgery; don't vets usually say not to let them run around for 10 or so days for healing? Is it ok to release them back outside right away?

Actually, I just called our county Animal Care to get info on their TNR program. They will set up a trap on my property, and it sounds like once a cat is trapped, they will pick it up and do the rest. I'm glad, as that makes it less daunting for me.

I wonder, when other cats see one cat get trapped, does that make them later less likely to go near an empty trap?

[redsixwing]

Nice! I'm glad they'll handle the rest. (I had a vet-tech who did not listen to us when we described a cat as "a feral cat who can't be picked up," and she slashed him good when he tried to manhandle her.)

We released our ferals right away, but also made sure they had a warm, dry resting place and plenty of food accessible, and trusted them to do the rest. One disappeared, never to be seen again. The rest hung around for at least a few days, and a couple then bailed. I still give two food on the regular.

When we had some recovering during nasty weather, we put them in the basement overnight where they could yowl all they wanted and still be contained and dry. Mostly, they slept.

Seeing other cats get trapped didn't seem to change anything for my batch. We had one clever mama-cat who learned to steal bait, probably from watching her kittens get trapped. She'd try to keep them away from it, but she couldn't do it full time. Actually, that's the same cat who got the vet tech.

Her name is Saba, and she's one of the ones who stuck around after she was eventually caught herself. She's Muffin's mother, and is now a roly-poly barn cat.

[fayanora]

The same truck drives by six times? That's not creepy and suspicious at all, nope.

[darkoshi]

Apparently a lot of people have white pickup trucks around here.