We're a foster family from the Netherlands, we foster for a small foundation called Scheldekat. The foundation's main objective is to TNR and manage the feral population in the local industrial and port area. In reality we also perform a lot of emergency assistance that is supposed to be done by the shelter and humane society.
Scheldekat traps cats, gets them neutered, microchipped (so they are not unowned cats) and treated for parasites. Tame (dumped) cats are rehomed and kittens are socialised by foster families and placed with new families too.
Truly feral cats are released again, they are provided with food and some kind of shelter (often the company where we caught the cats will build or donate a shelter, eg a trailer, for "their" cats). At most sites employees of the company keep an eye out for new strays so we can trap those too. This way we can get a colony under control and in time numbers will dwindle.
The area we are trying to manage is at least 20 square kilometres and we estimate we have half of it under control, so there is still a lot of work to be done. At the moment Scheldekat is caring for about 150 cats at 10 locations with cat shelters where we dispense about 250 kg of dry food a month and a lot of canned food !
We are dependent on private donations.
We have proof our TNR method works; our first ever project started more then 10 years ago at a wharf with more than 40 cats. At present there are only 3 elderly cats left, living in a little side building the wharf gave them. People know cats are cared for at this site, which also means they keep dumping cats there and we keep catching and rehoming them.
At the moment we have two fosters, Maya and Mascha. Maya and Mascha were thrown out of a car on the side of the freeway in the middle of nowhere, along with their mother and littermates. One of their brothers was promptly run over. Scheldekat was called in to catch them. Maya is very food motivated and happily walked into the trap on the first day. She was adopted straight away by someone who works at a company where Scheldekat manages a colony. Mascha is very cautious and intelligent but after three weeks the hunger must've gotten the better of her and she walked into the trap. Her mother was caught a few weeks after that. The last kitten has been spotted several times but never caught. We fear it might've been killed by a hunter that was hunting in the area around that time.
When Mascha came to us (already neutered) she was very scared. She had a nasty respiratory infection and tapeworm. She would growl and hiss when I'd try to touch her and stay holed up in the tent I had given her to hide in.
With a lot of TLC she came out of her shell and we became fast friends. She was still too shy to leave her room and come into the living room though.
Two weeks later we got her sister Maya too. She had been adopted but they couln't keep her because she was terrorizing their adult cats and their huge dogs. Maya was tiny and looked very cute but in reality she was a fun sized Genghis Khan !
Unfortunately for her my cats are quite big and not easily impressed by another kitten. It didn't stop her from trying to intimidate them, which was too funny to watch
Maya was not scared of anyone so not of us either, she loved getting cuddled.
Maya had a big belly, from above she looked like she had swallowed a tennisball. She was dewormed three times in a short time at the previous adress and their vet had spent three days examining her because he suspected her of wet FIP but he didn't find anything. The first day she was here I found a tapeworm segment on her (turned out the vet had used the wrong kind of dewormers, duh !) so I hoped her belly would slim down a bit after a good deworming. It didn't.
A friend made me very nervous by remarking "man, I hope she isn't pregnant". We took her to our own vet for an ultrasound to see why her belly was so big. The vet said it was just gas, her digestion was upset because she had had several courses of antibiotics and a tapeworm.
One night I saw she had pink nipples. I was confused, she couldn't be pinking up, she wasn't pregnant, she had just had an ultrasound the day before !! The mystery was solved when I pressed on her lower back. Yep, she put her behind in the air and started treading. She was coming into heat.
She started to seduce my boys (all neutered years ago), especially Ernesto because he was the only one who seemed to have an idea about what she expected from him. Because she was so tiny and he quite big it looked pretty ridiculous;
We reintroduced Maya and Mascha to eachother and they were happy to have sombody their own size to play with. Maya was 1300 grams lighter and quite a bit smaller than Mascha when she came to us but she had been sick and had an untreated tapeworm. We also thought maybe the tapeworm was the reason why Maya was so fixated on food. In no time she was almost as big and as heavy as her sister.
This picture is of the first time Mascha got up the courage to come into the living room. Playing with her sister she seemed to forget she was so nervous.
Maya was neutered two weeks after het ultrasound, the vet told us Maya had to go on a diet. We thought her belly was still so big because of gas but in reality the gas had disappeared and she had replaced it by fat. They only saw that when they opened her up.
Keeping Maya on a diet is very hard because she is cunning and very fast, she is always plotting to steal food somewhere. Maya lives to eat and Mascha only eats to live.
They are very happy to be together and so cute;
Mascha has become my cuddlecat, she keeps an eye on me and when she thinks I'm going to sit on the couch she'll be there before I am
Maya has picked my husband (also known as; the guy who hands out the food) as her favorite and the feeling is mutual.
Last month the two ladies got adopted, I had explained that Mascha would need a lot of time to adjust to her new home and that they would have to be very careful introducing the cats to their (cat-friendly) little dog. I think they underestimated it and four days ago i got a call that things weren't working out. I had to work but some ladies from the foundation went to pick up the cats.
I wasn't sure how well they would adjust to moving back with us, if they would still remember everything but I needn't have worried.
They told me Maya acted elated when they dropped them off at our place. Mascha hid in the cat tree. When I got home Maya recognized me instantly and Mascha came out of the cat tree after only 5 minutes, She started inspecting everthing and after a few hours she climbed into my arms again. She has been stuck to me like glue for the last couple of days.
When my husband came home and Maya saw him she started screaming. I imagine it must have been sometime like "Yay !! The food-man is back !! You are my favorite purrrson everrr.!! Feed me ! Feed me the !!"
As he was making her food she was purring and headbutting him the whole time, we feed raw and she got half a quail, the way she devoured it made me think of a boa constrictor with its prey
They seem very happy to be "home" again.
That's nice but on the other side it is tearing me apart because we can't keep them and we will have to adopt them out again. My husband is having a hard time with it too.
Scheldekat traps cats, gets them neutered, microchipped (so they are not unowned cats) and treated for parasites. Tame (dumped) cats are rehomed and kittens are socialised by foster families and placed with new families too.
Truly feral cats are released again, they are provided with food and some kind of shelter (often the company where we caught the cats will build or donate a shelter, eg a trailer, for "their" cats). At most sites employees of the company keep an eye out for new strays so we can trap those too. This way we can get a colony under control and in time numbers will dwindle.
The area we are trying to manage is at least 20 square kilometres and we estimate we have half of it under control, so there is still a lot of work to be done. At the moment Scheldekat is caring for about 150 cats at 10 locations with cat shelters where we dispense about 250 kg of dry food a month and a lot of canned food !
We are dependent on private donations.
We have proof our TNR method works; our first ever project started more then 10 years ago at a wharf with more than 40 cats. At present there are only 3 elderly cats left, living in a little side building the wharf gave them. People know cats are cared for at this site, which also means they keep dumping cats there and we keep catching and rehoming them.
At the moment we have two fosters, Maya and Mascha. Maya and Mascha were thrown out of a car on the side of the freeway in the middle of nowhere, along with their mother and littermates. One of their brothers was promptly run over. Scheldekat was called in to catch them. Maya is very food motivated and happily walked into the trap on the first day. She was adopted straight away by someone who works at a company where Scheldekat manages a colony. Mascha is very cautious and intelligent but after three weeks the hunger must've gotten the better of her and she walked into the trap. Her mother was caught a few weeks after that. The last kitten has been spotted several times but never caught. We fear it might've been killed by a hunter that was hunting in the area around that time.
When Mascha came to us (already neutered) she was very scared. She had a nasty respiratory infection and tapeworm. She would growl and hiss when I'd try to touch her and stay holed up in the tent I had given her to hide in.
With a lot of TLC she came out of her shell and we became fast friends. She was still too shy to leave her room and come into the living room though.
Two weeks later we got her sister Maya too. She had been adopted but they couln't keep her because she was terrorizing their adult cats and their huge dogs. Maya was tiny and looked very cute but in reality she was a fun sized Genghis Khan !
Unfortunately for her my cats are quite big and not easily impressed by another kitten. It didn't stop her from trying to intimidate them, which was too funny to watch
Maya was not scared of anyone so not of us either, she loved getting cuddled.
Maya had a big belly, from above she looked like she had swallowed a tennisball. She was dewormed three times in a short time at the previous adress and their vet had spent three days examining her because he suspected her of wet FIP but he didn't find anything. The first day she was here I found a tapeworm segment on her (turned out the vet had used the wrong kind of dewormers, duh !) so I hoped her belly would slim down a bit after a good deworming. It didn't.
A friend made me very nervous by remarking "man, I hope she isn't pregnant". We took her to our own vet for an ultrasound to see why her belly was so big. The vet said it was just gas, her digestion was upset because she had had several courses of antibiotics and a tapeworm.
One night I saw she had pink nipples. I was confused, she couldn't be pinking up, she wasn't pregnant, she had just had an ultrasound the day before !! The mystery was solved when I pressed on her lower back. Yep, she put her behind in the air and started treading. She was coming into heat.
She started to seduce my boys (all neutered years ago), especially Ernesto because he was the only one who seemed to have an idea about what she expected from him. Because she was so tiny and he quite big it looked pretty ridiculous;
We reintroduced Maya and Mascha to eachother and they were happy to have sombody their own size to play with. Maya was 1300 grams lighter and quite a bit smaller than Mascha when she came to us but she had been sick and had an untreated tapeworm. We also thought maybe the tapeworm was the reason why Maya was so fixated on food. In no time she was almost as big and as heavy as her sister.
This picture is of the first time Mascha got up the courage to come into the living room. Playing with her sister she seemed to forget she was so nervous.
Maya was neutered two weeks after het ultrasound, the vet told us Maya had to go on a diet. We thought her belly was still so big because of gas but in reality the gas had disappeared and she had replaced it by fat. They only saw that when they opened her up.
Keeping Maya on a diet is very hard because she is cunning and very fast, she is always plotting to steal food somewhere. Maya lives to eat and Mascha only eats to live.
They are very happy to be together and so cute;
Mascha has become my cuddlecat, she keeps an eye on me and when she thinks I'm going to sit on the couch she'll be there before I am
Maya has picked my husband (also known as; the guy who hands out the food) as her favorite and the feeling is mutual.
Last month the two ladies got adopted, I had explained that Mascha would need a lot of time to adjust to her new home and that they would have to be very careful introducing the cats to their (cat-friendly) little dog. I think they underestimated it and four days ago i got a call that things weren't working out. I had to work but some ladies from the foundation went to pick up the cats.
I wasn't sure how well they would adjust to moving back with us, if they would still remember everything but I needn't have worried.
They told me Maya acted elated when they dropped them off at our place. Mascha hid in the cat tree. When I got home Maya recognized me instantly and Mascha came out of the cat tree after only 5 minutes, She started inspecting everthing and after a few hours she climbed into my arms again. She has been stuck to me like glue for the last couple of days.
When my husband came home and Maya saw him she started screaming. I imagine it must have been sometime like "Yay !! The food-man is back !! You are my favorite purrrson everrr.!! Feed me ! Feed me the !!"
They seem very happy to be "home" again.
That's nice but on the other side it is tearing me apart because we can't keep them and we will have to adopt them out again. My husband is having a hard time with it too.
