need help again please - asap

1. how do i clean cages WITH cats inside - my last 4 have made horrible messes and i feel terrible leaving them trapped inside with it. I cant get the paper out while they sit on it and i dont want to cause more of a mess.

2. there is a storm coming possibly tonight - it will at least be raining in the morning. that is when i was planning on releasing them - should i do it when i get home tonight??? One of the cats is a female and i wanted to hold her as long as possible though... ALSO with her sitting at least near her feces - can she get an infection??!???


thanks

they are homeless?

thus they are used to rain = being wet.

Perhaps simply use luke-warm water and pour on. Lukewarm water feels quite much better than cold rain... Have it done somewhere you dont mind it will be messy outside for a later cleaning - preferably by more water...

I presume they are in a warm place where they will dry soon.


You can perhaps have in some "soft soap". (hope the translation is right). this is useful in most cat-circumstances. Can even be used as a cat-schampoo if need be.



..........................

I presume you had done spaying on them? I agree, dont release them too early into cold and wet weather. Unless you know they do have shelter from the weather.

Real semiferal / feral homeless are survivors. Thus the grown ups they are not at all as sensitive for germs as most homecats. And thus not so easy to get infections.
- By the way. Also homecats do often manage when humans get sick. for example, cats manage the salomonella germs better then humans.

Its what I believe, but if some of the real knowleable answers otherwise - listen to their advice.


Good luck!

Aw, I'm so sorry I didn't see this? What did you decide to do?



Laurie

I ended up letting them out the next morning before it rained. I wanted them to have the appropriate healing time. and i think it was a few hours before it got really stormy anyway.

I was actually wondering how to remove the dirty newspapers - (should have stated that) from under the cats. I was able to do one side of one cage - but with the other cat sitting near the opening (there is only one on each cage) i couldnt get the paper. It just got sooo nasty in there. I hate to have them sit in it.

One cat clawed the sheet I had over both cages into her cage and was sitting on it - the other cat had no covering over night. Felt bad for him - but thought it was really funny she made a nice bed for herself.

I didnt know I could sort of bath them while in the cages.... but with dirty paper i dont think that would be a good idea...

any more help would be great...

THANKS!!

Are they in cages or the traps? If cages, put a small litterbox in there before you put the cats in there. They'll probably sit on it - until they need to use it. Then they have to chose what to do.

If they're in the traps, I have no suggestions.

We always pay for boarding at the vet ( $13 a night, but if they didn't need the space they only charge us $6.50 ) so they're in the vet cages until we bring them to release them. That way we don't have to worry about the mess or the weather.

Laurie

A suggestion from my experience with TNRing 15 ferals:

I put the recovery cages on 2 boards with tarp beneath,
so they were raised on each end with the cage
suspended a few inches off the ground.

I put some paper in each cage, but allowed the pee to run through
to the tarp below, then washed or disposed of the tarp later.

I also have done the following for longer stays:

I put the cage on
2 large trash bags taped together to form a tarp, with 2 cages end
to end. One clean and empty lined with paper,
and one with the feral in it.

I do the clean cage set up while kitty is recovering. Once kitty has
messed some in one cage, I put the 2 cages end to end, opening
to opening (these have "doors" on one end, and the cage entrance
on the other, so they can "open" on both ends. I open up the cage door on cage two, line the door end up with the ferals "cage entrance end"
and then reach in from the "other" end, to scare the feral into the clean cage and then I drop the clean cage door down.

This is actually pretty easy to
do, sounds hard but its not. Just hard to describe!

I also used larger "recovery cages" so the cats had more room
to move in. So I had the cage they were trapped in, and a larger
"recovery" cage. This helped alot with the mess issue too... they
could soil one end, but be clean in the other.