April 2009

I discovered a new colony of cats across from where I've been feeding and trapping. The business owners nearby have been feeding them each day, but they have not been fixed. There is a trailer park right nearby, so my guess is that a lot have come from there and are of varying degrees of feral/stray, and some have been fixed already.

The first cat I trapped was an orange male, who was already neutered, so he just got vaccinations, and an ear notch.

This is the second kitty:



He was an unneutered male, and they discovered he had an abscess on his neck, most likely from fighting. So he got neutered, vaccinated, and the abscess shaven, drained and cleaned. He also got FELV tested since it was obvious he'd been in a fight, and thankfully it was negative. Luckily, none of the cats in my area have tested positive for diseases, and hopefully it will remain that way.

December 14 - tabby girl kitten

We're giving "my" kitties a break, and are back to trapping at the second feral site to try and get the rest of Jimmy's siblings. There are three of them still running around, but unfortunately they would be too old to socialise, so we're going to have to trap-neuter-return.

We managed to trap one of the tabbies who is in being fixed.

Jimmy was named after the Australian singer Jimmy Barnes, so this kitten will be named Barnes. The other 2 kittens in the litter will be named Johnny and Farnham after the singer from the same era - hopefully one of the remaining kittens will be male...

I forgot to get her photo, so that will be coming soon when I next see her and have a camera.

December 8 - DLH tabby female

This girl is related to the DLH caught the previous week - they are the only two DLH's I have seen, they are always together, and they are bigger than the other kitties.

I named her Hagrid, in the hope she'd be a male, but oh well - she's a female Hagrid!

December 2 - male tabby and white and DLH tortie female

I started trapping at the area I've been feeding at for a while. The kitties have started running over when they hear me shake the food bag, so I figured that was a good time to start the trapping.

December 2 was the first night of trapping, and we trapped 2 kitties. One was a gorgeous long haired tortie who is always the first to run over, and she also grooms all the other kitties from that colony, she's a sweet cat. The other is a very handsome tabby male with a white chest (most of the cats in the colony have white chests)

This is McGonagall, the male



And Olympe, the female

October 20/21 - torbie female, tabby kitten, tabby and white male

This night I trapped a torbie girl I'd been after for a while who I named Hermione. While I was out there though, I could hear a kitten mewing. I realised there was actually two kittens mewing - the two that got separated from their mother on a previous trapping night. It was heartbreaking hearing them cry...

I put the traps back out to try and get them, and managed to get one of the kittens, but not his sister. As soon as I got the tabby, his Siamese sibling started crying and crying for him. It was very heartbreaking. I had transferred the first kitty into my recovery cage at home, and taken the trap back out to try and get the Siamese kitten, but she refused to go into the trap.

So the next day I got the adult female spayed, picked up a large crate from the shelter to house the kitten so I could socialise him, and that night went out with a better drop trap than I had previously used to try and get the other Siamese.

I had no luck with the drop trap, so put out a regular trap as well which she stepped into, but got spooked by another cat, so ran off. The cat that spooked her went into the trap though, so once again I was full up on traps!

The next day (October 22), I had the tabby and white male neutered, and continued spending time with the tabby kitten who we called Jimmy. Unfortunately, Hermione, the female who had been spayed wasn't doing well. She wasn't eating, wasn't moving from her litter tray and was looking lethargic.

By the next day she was still not looking good, so I released the tabby male (Oliver), and took Hermione to the emergency vet. She was put under anesthesia to get examined and was found to be dehydrated and had a temperature, but had nothing else obvious wrong, so she received fluids and antibiotics to help her along. She perked up the next day, so I released her that night. I wasn't convinced she was 100%, but I had done all I could for her, and I knew she would be happier back in her own environment.

Jimmy, the kitten, I worked on socialising, and he came along in leaps and bounds. It took him a few days before he would allow me to pick him up, but he eventually did, and then the purr came along soon after.

He was pretty scared initially, so I kept him for close to a month, and by the end of that time he was about 11 weeks old and a happy little kitten. I was having trouble finding him a home, so I surrendered him to Palo Alto Animal Services where he had a better chance of getting a home. He had a rough start there - he was very scared at his new environment, but after a few days settled in, and enjoyed all the attention he got in the adoption room, and soon got used to other cats and enjoyed wrestling with other kittens. He was adopted to the perfect family on December 5th along with another kitten.

Jimmy



Hermione

October 16 - tabby male

Another drama packed trapping :)

I had planned to release the girl we trapped over the weekend, and Andrew wanted to "say goodbye as well". So we went to the usual spot, and saw a kitten!

We tried to follow it, and saw another kitten, and another! We ended up seeing about 5 kittens, and mum. Mum ran off one way with 3 kittens trailing her, and the other 2 ran in a different direction. We looked at each other and said "crap".

So we quickly released Ginny, reset the trap we transported her in to try and get the 2 kittens that were still in that area, then tried to figure out where the other kittens went. We crossed the road, followed them around a building, and then realised they were going to the generator where I had caught a litter of kittens a few months back.

So we raced home, grabbed the other trap, and set it not far from that spot, and checked the first trap.

No kitty, but the kittens were hanging around there. We realised we needed a drop trap.

We moved that trap to the generator, the other trap to a bit closer to the generator, then stopped and looked around. There was 6 cats in my field of vision, but I couldn't see any of the kittens. So they and mum were still around as well.

We went back to the first area, put the drop trap out, and tried to get the 2 kittens. Long story short, we got no kittens, but we did end up seeing a total of 4 kittens in that area, and caught an older kitty in the drop trap.

We went back to the generator, and there was cats galore. There has to be 10+ cats there, plus kittens, and that doesn't include the ones I normally feed who I still haven't been able to trap and are one building over.

I decided that this particular drop trap is bad bad bad, and I will not be using it again. This kitty's nose got carved up as well.

His wasn't as bad though, and he could neutered the next day, and released the day after.

This is Neville. Unfortunately the vet forgot to notch his ear, so hopefully he's not silly enough to go into a trap again.

October 15 - tabby female

We were trying to get a particular cat who was avoiding our traps, so we used a drop trap. The drop trap is fantastic, as it's not at all threatening to a cat. A drop trap looks a little like this:

Unfortunately, once the cat is caught, it goes crazy trying to get out, and this kitty managed to smash her nose into one of the wooden supports. We kept her for a few days in the larger recovery cage so she could recover before being spayed.

She got spayed, the vet was nice enough to clean her up, and we named her Ginny. She was released a couple of days after her spay.