At a stand still!

Laurie, you know as well as others my situation about the ferals I've been feeding by the airport! Anyway, last week, my son, his friend, and I set the trap in hopes to catching the kitty that I want, who has let me touch her!
Anyway in the meantime, all the other 12 or 15 depending on the day, have figured out where the canned food is being fed, and have made their way down where she is and has made her kind of skiddish (just a little bit) toward me again! now she kind of has to eat in a hurry, or she will grab a chunk of food and jump back down to eat it!
Back to the trapping, we set it and left for about 15 min and I starting to think the trap isn't that great because each time I have set it, when I come back to it, the door is down, but no kitty! So we set it again and left and came back and the same thing, no kitty! now where they live hasn't been mowed in forever, so it is like a hay field, it's just thick, not upright grass!
so the trap wasn't very level! I don't know what to do! I brought the trap home and it's been almost a week, well today is a week ago! what can i do about the feeding situation, and then the trapping situation!

I really don't know! I've never had an experience with a trap being tripped without something being in it. Are you sure it's not a person tripping it? Is the food gone?

And I also don't know how to help - I've never tried to trap just one cat in particular. Well - of course, as some of the group get spayed and neutered. But once they've been trapped, it's usually not too much of an issue, but we always had the vet ear-tip, so if we did trap one that had been trapped before, we could just release them.

Maybe there are other people with suggestions on how to handle this - but I can't think of any way to feed one cat when there are many.

Do you live somewhere where you have access to free spay/neuter for ferals? I mean - if you do, or if you can afford a low-cost place, I'd wouldn't worry about trapping just one of them in particular, then the issue of feeding all of them also isn't an issue.

But as to the tripped trap - are you using a have-a-hart type trap? Is it long or short? Because I've just never had that experience, so I have no idea what to suggest! Raccoons, possums, the same cats - but never nothing. !!!!!

Laurie

Rats perhaps? They can go right through the cage bars and set off the trap.

Good point. While there are certainly plenty of mice, if there are rats, we've never encountered them. I'm used to rural trapping conditions, not urban or suburban.

Laurie

thanks lauie and keithp, yes the trap is like a haveahart, when i bought it, was after gigi went missing, and one night Jace and i had just left the store, where i feed these ferals, i was going pretty slow down the hwy. when we both saw this cat standing in the grass off the side of the rode, he looked at me and i looked at him.... i said 'was that gigi? he said, 'it sure did look like her to me" so we did a u turn and went back, the following day i bought the trap, went to the woods, and set it, he and i went to check the trap 45 min
later and the same thing....food was eaten and door was down. no animal!
so we set it again and in the morning we checked it same thing!!!! on the third try i had gone out there to check it and something had dug what looked to be a mote or trench, all the way around it, in the pinestraw!
When i trapped my 3 or 4 kitties at the carwash, I had borrowed the trap from a friend, and it worked like a dream! No we don't have any programs
for spa/neuter, if we did, I would of already started trapping any of them, one at a time, like i said I did my cats that way but there were only 4 of them, i don't know how I got so lucky that they each got in there at the right time!I would like to just have that one for me, and get her while she is still more apt to adjust, and so she doesn't get pg. but I do still want to trap the others and TNR I dont' just want to get her and forget the rest!
they are just as important to me too! i just can't afford on my own to pay for all of them to be fixed, and it really isn't my responsiblity to be the only one to have to pay for them all, I believe it is a community problem, and a problem it is about to be because these kitties are at the age they could get pg at any time! I am so frustrated! the cost to get the paperwork done and the cost of the IRS, to get the 501(c)3 are high, I don't have that kind of money either! scream!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!all i know is i can't research and get anything done before a new set of babies are born!!! my accountant told me that it takes quite awhile to even get the 501 status from the IRS, there are so many requirements, but I will go and talk to my vet and see what kind of deal he can do, he already takes in the strays from the city limits and fixes them and keeps them for a certain amount of time to adopt out and depending on how many he gets, is the deciding factor as to how long their life is. If he's is crowded, then he will start putting them down. if not so crowded i think they have a month, then he'll put them down! I can't hardly stand going in there cause they have a cage on rollers, actually it is
4 cages on top of each other, usually with kittens in them.
So people can see them and interact and hopefully adopt them! I see them and I want to take them with me! Then after I leave those babies faces keep haunting me, they keep popping up in my mind! knowing they might not make it!! I did find out that the city pays my vet a fee monthly, for animal control.
I'm still looking and i found something else, another avenue, but I have got to read it and study it , and the try to go from there!!
Thanks for putting up with me!!
Monique