A New Colony Trapping Project (and Guess What Color They Are?)

Someone posted in our foster group about a woman who needed to trap some cats in Carnegie, one of them a visibly pregnant female. That’s where I live so I asked for information and she got me in contact. The woman who had contacted told me about some cats she’d seen outdoors at the edge of woods behind houses in her neighborhood. She’d just moved in a few months ago and didn’t know anything about how long they’d been there but they seemed hungry, they weren’t really friendly, and she knew they should be spayed and neutered—she was friends with the woman in our foster group so she understood. There appeared to be five adults and six kittens in the colony. So far three adults and three kittens have been trapped in a week! Read through, or scroll down, if you’d like to help us with this project and “pay for a spay” directly to the clinic.

She told me she had no experience in this herself, but I told her I’d loan her traps, show her how to use them, and give her support, though I might not be able to come over when she was trapping—in fact, in many cases I prefer that because community cats often trust their caretaker more than my presence as a stranger and trapping is often more successful. So I’d set her up and be available by text and phone. Temperatures had been in the 90s each day, so extra precautions were needed for avoiding direct sunlight, trapping very early or after the sun went down, watching the traps and being careful with covering since cats could get overheated from stress.

Her trapping training session went really well, and I trusted her to be able to set up the traps and take care of the cats. She took the traps home and that night she trapped THREE CATS! One solid black adult and two more or less tuxedo kittens. She drove them off to a walk-in clinic the next morning. The adult was a female pregnant with five kittens who was spayed, and the other two were 8 and 12 week old kittens, both females. The younger one had a bad eye that needed to be enucleated. She is lucky to have an amazing bathroom in her basement that’s absolutely purrfect for fostering and big enough to hold cats in traps. We had discussed fostering and socializing kittens, and though her job often requires a lot of extra hours, she decided she’d give it a try, kept the adult in the trap and let the kittens out. We’d keep the female adult inside for two days because of her pregnant spay and the heat outside, just to give her some extra time to recover. The younger kitten became Baby Cat and the older kitten became Tux.

Trapping next day she caught two more, another solid black adult female and a male more or less tuxedo kitten who appeared to be 12 weeks old. The solid black female was lactating and I was concerned if there were very young kittens out there in the heat, they would suffer and might die. But when she called the clinic for more information they said the condition of her uterus and mammary glands showed that the kittens were likely older, possibly even weaned, and mother cats nurse until 12 weeks or more. I wondered if she was actually the mother of the 8-week kitten and the other smaller kittens she’d seen and sent photos of. She named the kitten Dice, who would also stay for fostering, and let him out of his trap as well. Later she found the three kittens underneath the cover over the adult cat’s trap, cuddling in next to her, so possibly she really was someone’s mom. But they were all familiar and probably relieved to see each other again.

She released the first female and that was when she met met the neighbor who’d been feeding the cats since last year and found he knew them really well, fed them three times a day and had build a shelter in the woods for them. (He told us later that he had called his veterinarian’s office about what he could do for these cats and a technician, in short, told him they did not work with feral cats and did not give him any information about TNR or other options, so he did what he felt was right in feeding them, but kept looking for information. He and his wife are amazing, more on them later.)

We still needed to trap that visibly pregnant female and several kittens. There are three color themes among the kittens: more or less tuxedo, black with much less white, only paws and chins and some white whiskers, and tabby. There’s only one tabby kitten in this photo, but we suspect there’s another.

I went down one evening last week to scope out the area and she told me she’d seen the pregnant cat down there. We prepared traps and saw quite a few cats and kittens when we got to the end of the street, including these two who held their ground, calmly waiting for their dinner, including the two below. The one on the left flipped her tail and I could see clearly there were no fuzzy dice under there, so she was a female, the one on the right looked like a bigger cat, male maybe?

I feasted on photos as she and I waited for the neighbor, their caretaker. The cat on the left got up and moved into the woods behind but the other cat stayed in position so I got some lovely photos of her. And I saw her naked nipples, preparing for birth. Was this the other pregnant cat? (We learned later her name was Daryl, but I’ll call her Daryl for clarity from here.)

When her caretaker came outdoors and whistled a special whistle she was on her feet with her tail straight up with a big hook on the end, the sign of a very happy cat. She knew who that was and she was paying no mind to me!

She moved over the the little path in the woods where they were fed, and her sister cat joined her. These two sister cats, as I call them when they are often seen together and appear to be the same age, were there waiting for their caretaker to feed them.

We stood and talked quietly for a while and I explained trapping to the caretaker. He had been reading and watching videos about working with cats like this so he was familiar with it. When he’d seen the new kittens he knew this was what he would need to do but wasn’t sure where to find others locally—good thing the woman I was working with moved in when she did! We decided that since the bathroom was pretty full right then because she still had a female in a trap to be released tomorrow morning, any cats we trapped could spend the night in the neighbor’s garage. As we talked, Daryl moved a little closer and kept an eye on him. I had seen the heavy look in her belly from a distance, but that was when I could see for certain, from the front, that she was very pregnant because her sides were rounded in a specific way. You can see that in the photo below.

Seeing the cats’ reaction to the caretaker I asked him if he’d want to go and set the traps. They trusted him and that would build trust in the trap. He agreed so I showed him how the traps were set in case they tripped as he carried them or set them down, showed him how to cover the trap completely as soon as one of them went in and just let them calm down, then he could carry her back to us.

Traps or not, both cats came toward their caretaker, but Daryl was all over her caretaker, walking around him and rubbing on him, wrapping her tail around his arm, it was so sweet. He petted her and told her to go in the trap like a good girl, she rubbed her face on it and I was afraid she’d push the door shut—traps can be touchy—but she stopped and then looked in and looked back up at him. He gave her one last pet and walked back to us.

We watched her walk around the trap and look in, walk around again, then walk in, start to eat, shift position and trip the door, then keep on eating. I gave the caretaker a cover and he took off to cover her, and it was only then that she realized she was in a trap and started to panic. He got her covered in good time and carried her back to the shade near us.

I wish all cats trusted their caretakers that much!

We stood and quietly talked while we waited for the other cat to return, but only a curious little tabby cat showed up. Well, that would be okay!

We didn’t trap the tabby or any other cats that night but I did have a chance to talk to quite a few neighbors and explain what we were doing.

The woman I’m working with picked up Daryl in the morning and took her off to the walk-in clinic, and it was while she was registering they asked for her name. She messaged the caretaker to ask and he told her he had named her Daryl. Not sure if the others also had names but I guess we’ll find that out.

Daryl was pretty far along with five more kittens. While the other two females spayed were about a year old, Daryl was about two years old, so she could be their mother. And with just a little bit more attachment to a human than all the others, she may have been someone’s socialized pet cat who ended up outdoors.

Daryl would also have a 48-hour indoor stay, weather depending as each day was hotter than the one before, very unusual for this area. She did fine in her trap through the day and the woman I’m working with was successful in using the trap separator to keep Daryl in her trap while changing her pee pad and giving her food and water later. However, she was not in her trap in the morning! She was tucked into a cozy kitty cubby with the three kittens.

She did figure out how Daryl escaped, but since it seemed Daryl might have some potential to be socialized it wasn’t a bad idea as a way to see how she reacted to the situation. She had been spending time down there playing with the kittens to gain their trust and familiarity so Daryl would have an opportunity too. And gave trapping a break for a few days while she went back to work after a week off.

Daryl wasn’t enjoying her indoor time despite not acting like a classic feral who’s climbing the walls, so she was released tonight. Her caretaker was also hoping she might be able to be adopted rather than going back outdoors but was very happy to see her. In a day or two we’ll be back to trapping now that we have some room.

Help us and Pay for Spay!

We still have this obviously pregnant cat…

…another adult and three kittens.

We looked at our options for surgeries before we started and decided to use a walk-in clinic because of the pregnant females and the scarcity of appointments elsewhere—we don’t have a few weeks to wait for an appointment for them. The clinic’s price is $90 per cat or kitten because they all get the full package of surgery, rabies vaccine, FVRCP vaccine and tests. While the females returned outdoors might not necessarily need the FVRCP vaccine and the tests it’s not a bad idea for community cat health. The kittens who will be up for adoption actually do need those services. The cost isn’t much more than other TNR appointments, in fact some places actually charge that much for TNR already. And the walk-in clinic can also offer other services if necessary—like the enucleation for Baby Cat—on site, and they have reasonable low prices for all their services.

She is not interested in running a GoFundMe and has no social media accounts to solicit direct donations. I don’t like to collect donations for others and I’ll be asking for donations for a cat in my neighborhood soon too (probably just locally but I’ll post about him here), so that’s why you can Pay for a Spay. Of course, that covers a neuter too, same price. If you are interested, please let me know! As we trap I can contact whoever has contacted me, I’ll let you know we’ve trapped one or more and you can contact the clinic directly and give them your amount. If there are other services for the cat, you only need to pay $90 for the surgery and basic services, we’ll deal with the rest. And if you’d like to donate less than $90 you can still do that, just let me know and I’ll make it work.

And there are more cats…

As we talked last week the caretaker said he had seen cats in the woods and the railroad tracks below, and even in the industrial park on the other side of the tracks. He had gone over and talked with a few people who were familiar with the cats and pointed at a pile of Belgian block, saying that’s where the cats lived. And indeed, there were cats hiding among the blocks and a few coming and going. The caretaker thought that might actually be where they had their kittens because it would be quite safe from predators like coyotes and foxes and owls who are all present in this area.

So after these 11 cats there will be more, but I’ll be looking for assistance on that and planning around some free clinics. But that’s why it’s critical to get all the cats who are in this colony now before those kittens are a month or two older and can conceive kittens of their own, and the adults who aren’t pregnant or spayed won’t have a chance to have more.

I hope the details help you or you enjoy reading about trapping

I like to give details of how we trapped for anyone who is learning or needs ideas or just likes to read about trapping. I do hope that if anyone can take ideas from what’s here and be successful in trapping they’ll share it forward.

Fear-free trapping

I mentioned keeping my trapping “fear free” because it can be such a frightening thing, and I’ve integrated several ways to do that mentioned here. Please read my article on fear-free trapping on the Fear Free Pets website: https://fearfreepets.com/can-trapping-cats-be-fear-free/

Help with goods for socialization

Five growing kittens are going to eat a lot of food and use a lot of litter. I’ve already collected donated goods from Hollywood Feed, which has always helped me with donations for my fosters, and purchased a few scratchers and wand toys that are beneficial for socialization. If you’d like to help with food or litter or anything else, please let me know. I can give you the caretakers’ address for delivery or make arrangements for any other donations.

 

 

A note about my cat rescue activities

I’ve been at this one way or another since about 1980, and I’ve just accepted that rescuing cats is a permanent part of my life. I try to be very careful with my time to be sure I meet all my deadlines and have the time to create the artwork and gift items I sell, but rescuing cuts into both my income and my time. However, if I have the skills to help a cats and people who need it, and no one else is available, I am happy I can do that for them.

I do find training and encouraging the the caretaker to trap their cats is just as successful and often moreso than when I move in and do it for them. But it also saves me time I don’t always have. I really need to keep my time under control to keep my income where I need it to be, and this also helps me still continue to help cats and people, and empower the people I work with to not only do this for themselves and their cats and know exactly what to do when a new cat shows up, but they can also pass the knowledge on to others. I am always there if they need some assistance.

It still takes some time, long text messages with explicit instructions for setting traps and socializing kittens, calling ahead to clinics or for clarification if the caretaker needs information. And, of course, helping to raise funds, even if I’m not

• Consider a Custom Pet Memorial Votive for yourself or a family member or friend. Remember that they don’t actually have to be memorials—a votive with someone’s pet on it while they are very much alive is also a nice custom gift!
• Visit www.PortraitsOfAnimals.net. I am currently preparing my basement studio for handmade goods but it will be a couple weeks before I start stocking things, but look around in my Handmade Gifts Gallery.
• I still have plenty of feline garden flags, though I’m currently out of a few designs.
• I have one of each of the Tortie Girls block prints and one of Awakening, all are matted and framed.
• And consider even a small portrait of one or more of your fine felines!

If you have any questions, please let me know! And thanks for any help.

 

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Gifts featuring cats you know! Visit Portraits of Animals

Feline Gifts from Portraits of Animals!

“22 Cats” votive lamp featuring all the portraits in my “Great Rescues Day Book”. Read more.

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All images and text used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission, although links to your site are more than welcome and are shared. Please ask if you are interested in using and image or story in a print or internet publication. If you are interested in purchasing a print of an image or a product including it, check my animal and nature website Portraits of Animals to see if I have it available already. If you don’t find it there, visit Ordering Custom Artwork for more information on a custom greeting card, print or other item.

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Weekly schedule of features:

Sunday: Essays, Pet Loss, Poetry, The Artist’s Life

Monday: Adoptable Cats, TNR & Shelters

Tuesday: Rescue Stories

Wednesday: Commissioned Portrait or Featured Artwork

Thursday: New Merchandise

Friday: Book Review, Health and Welfare, Advocacy

Saturday: Your Backyard Wildlife Habitat, Living Green With Pets, Creating With Cats

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