3 posts tagged “trap-neuter-release”
Two more girls spayed and re-released:
I can't help but think how many kittens would have been born in the next 2 months. We have so far, in this colony, spayed 6 females and neutered 1 male. All six of the female cats were pregnant. According to Wikipedia, a litter of kittens is typically 2-6 kittens, after a gestation of just over 2 months. You start doing some math there, and you realize what a timebomb we just diffused. A timebomb of wild feral kittens. We still have a lot of work to do, as I keep catching cats I've never seen before, like the black and white beauty on the right. As feral colony caretakers keep telling me: feral colonies are like icebergs, you're only seeing the top 10%. The remaining 90% of the problem is beneath the surface.
Bummer, the colony caretaker had fed the cats before we got there, so none of the cats were hungry enough to check out the snacks in our traps, except one curious little soul.
This one's at the SPCA today, getting "snipped and tipped" and I'll keep the cat overnight to watch for bleeding or bad reactions to the anesthesia, and then I'll release the cat back to its colony on Thursday AM.
Everybody who knows me, knows that I am sort of a crazy cat lady. I'm not like, wearing a kittycat sweatshirt or anything, I don't feed a bunch of feral colonies, but I do volunteer at a shelter to take care of cats, I do feral cat trap-neuter-release, I have three cats of my own, and you know, I'm pretty knowledgeable about cats.
So when this cute orange cat showed up on my doorstep last week, I took pity on him and gave him a snack.
Well yesterday I got an email from a neighbor of someone who'd lost an orange cat. Turns out this was their cat! His name was Jasper, and he lived about 7-8 blocks away, across a very busy main road, and he almost certainly would not have found his way home---and I wouldn't have thought to put up fliers in that part of the neighborhood. Yesterday they came and picked him up and took him home, for which I was really grateful. They left me the collar I'd put on him with my phone number---in case he wandered home, I wanted his owners to call me so if he wandered off again on a cold night, I could get him home quickly next time.
His owner just called me to thank me for getting him home. I'm so glad he is home safely. He is a sweet cat, that Jasper.
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Also last night, my friend and I who volunteer at the shelter, did some feral cat trapping in her friend's neighborhood. We lucked out and right as we arrived with the traps, the lady who feeds the colony got home with a bunch of cat food! The cats SWARMED her, so we moseyed up and asked her if we could trap and fix and return all the cats, and she got all misty-eyed. "Would you? Really? For free? I have been wanting to do it, but I just can't afford it for all these cats..." She told us about how they have kittens, but most of the kittens don't make it to adulthood, and it makes her sad to see the females always pregnant, desperately hungry. She was grateful that we'd be able to spay the two pregnant females (thankfully, we caught both), and she was thankful that we had plans to come back and keep trapping, to get all of the cats fixed.
The best part was, since the cats were all hanging out waiting to be fed, they all went into the traps INSTANTLY. It was the fastest, easiest trap I've ever done. They smelled that Mackerel and BAM BAM BAM BAM, four traps snapped shut.
Usually when you're trapping cats, you place the trap where you've been baiting, and then you wait a couple hours, come back, check the trap, let loose a raccoon, rebait and reset the trap, wait another two hours, no cat, come back in another hour, see if you got a cat... It takes all night, it's exhausting, and frequently disappointing. So last night... last night was a night unlike any other. Those cats went down like deck chairs on the Titanic.
This morning they all went to the SPCA, and are being neutered. They are all scared and sad looking, but they will all come home sterilized and hungry, and we'll feed them, watch them overnight, and then re-release them Thursday AM. Also, we got the woman set up with our rescue organization so that she can take some of the food that is donated to the shelter and feed the colony. When rescue organizations get donated food, we can't really use it, because we feed all of our cats the same thing all the time to keep them as healthy as we can. The great thing is that all the donated food goes to feral cat givers, needy pet owners, and other rescue groups who need it. It is a really great way to "pass it on." I know it must get expensive for that woman to feed all those cats, so I'm glad we were able to get her hooked up with free spay-neuter appointments, and free cat food for the rest of their lives.
I am feeling really good about myself today. It has been a long time since I've done anything that lifted my spirits like yesterday did---finding Jasper's people, and trapping 4 cats lickety-split. It reminded me why I do the things I do. It reminded me why I care, and why I put the effort into Doing The Right Thing. I hope there is a sunshiney corner for me in Kittycat Heaven.
