New to TNR and I have some questions- can't find threads with the answers

[annarrue]

I have been involved in dog rescue for about 13 maybe 14 years.  I then bought the lot next door that had a falling down house on it, about 5 years ago..  Well, I started feeding the four or five cats that lived in the house.  Long story short I am now going through 3 --16lb bags of cat food a week.  I have counted as many as 25 cats waiting for me at feeding time.  I think most of these cats are "true" ferals I can't get within 3/4 feet of them or they run.  Some of them when caught in the trap act like miniature mountain lions-one of the last Toms that I took in to neuter, bit the hand of one of the volunteers at the clinic after he had been given his "sleepy" shot.  So far since mid Dec. I have TNR'd 22 cats-I keep a record.  But here are my questions.

1. How do I tell when to quit TNR'ing? Right now when I feed I see maybe 10 cats that haven't had an ear tip, but there has to be more.(I borrowed three traps from different rescue groups)

2. What happens to to "traveling" Toms after being neutered?  The biting Tom was one I had never seen before.  Can they return to their group of ferals? Or are they from MY group?  This sounds stupid but I often think about them being chased out of "their" colony and having no where to go. Not that I am going to quit this project!!  Just wondering.

I would appreciate any answers/help I can get.  Thank you

Anna

 

[Willowy]

Good for you for helping the kitties!

#1. . It never really stops. Any time you see a cat you haven't TNRed, it's time to fire up the traps again! Even one intact female can bring the population right back to where it was before you TNRed. Once you get all the regulars, you can probably get by only trapping once a year or so to get the newcomers---November and December are the best months for it (in temperate climates in the Northern hemisphere), as the females won't be pregnant or nursing then, and the toms won't be off trying to find ladies in heat.

#2, after males are neutered, they actually get along much better than before. Not being a threat for breeding rights, they'll be allowed to hang with the ladies, instead of being chased off by the stronger toms. So they may be welcomed into another group, or they might hang around with your group, it depends who they like best. But they're definitely better off after neutering, socially speaking.

 

[ldg]

Wow, Anna, what a project. And what a love you are for all the work you've put into these kitties!

Well, I'm not sure how others feel about it, but the way I see it, once you start TNRing in a location, basically you just have to keep going - if you can. We TNR in an RV park in barn country. About 10 years ago, when we first started TNRing, we traveled around to all the local farmers, and discussed TNR with them. Very few, at that time, actually had their cats sterilized. Most were receptive to the idea, and at least willing to pay for it - some even did the trapping and sterilizing themselves. That really cut down on the flow of cats over here. But the constant food source (open garbage bins) draws the cats here. Pets are allowed - some escape, and people dump them. So no matter how many cats we trap in any given year, there are always more. And if we don't trap them? Well, in the past 2 years we've TNR'd over 15 females. Well - only five were released here, the rest went into the foster network. I'd have to go look up the actual number (we keep records too :lol3: ) - but if we didn't have them sterilized... I can't even begin to imagine how many cats we'd be feeding now. As it is, we only have 11 cats actively in the colony. A few of the males we've TNR'd have disappeared as soon as they were released - and we'd only seen them here a couple of times. I count us lucky that we were able to trap them at all.

So... I don't know if the food is attracting more cats to your colony, or if they were wandering through and left again, even after being sterilized. This certainly does happen. At this point, any cat that shows up here is new. Whether they stay or not after being sterilized is... up to them. :dk: There are definitely others around here that put out food for cats, but no one that the vet knows of that's actively TNRing (in the immediate area where we live. There are actually quite a few in the township and environs - we were pleasantly surprised).

I don't know how others on TCS manage. But the others in the area here that TNR do as we do - keep the trap primed and ready to go, basically. We don't have a low cost spay/neuter clinic that's within a (for us) reasonable drive (there is one about an hour or so away). So after the first bunch of cats we TNR'd back in 2002, we made friends with the vet and the staff. :lol3: We were friendly, thankful, brought home made cookies, put together lunches for the entire staff... and ended up working out a cost structure that is the same as if we were a registered rescue org. We also enlisted the vet techs and front desk staff to help foster kittens, and they end up adopting them out. Since then, a number of groups have sprung up around here, and by befriending a group that uses the same vet, and by donating the cost of care for any foster kitties they take from us, we now have a foster group that will take friendly cats and young kittens, whether feral or not, from us. They adopt out of Petco, so they have a high adoption rate. But any older ferals (and by that, in this case I pretty much mean any cat older than four months) just get released here. Some cats seem feral at first, but "friendly" up pretty quickly. Then we know they've been around people, so off to the foster network they go.

...but from that perspective (determining if any of the cats are friendly), it's different for us, because we feed them basically right outside our door. Well, because of the colony dynamics, we actually have several feeding stations set up (we have a few REALLY pissy cats!), but either my hubby or I will stay out there for a while after we've put the food out. Most of the ferals get used to us over time. We can actually physically interact with 8 of the 11, and four of them I'm actually able to crate rather than try to re-trap at this point when they've needed medical attention.

Sorry for the ramble... don't know if this helped, or if I answered your questions. Feel free to ask more or ask again. :lol3:

Laurie

 

[ldg]

Good for you for helping the kitties!

#1. . It never really stops. Any time you see a cat you haven't TNRed, it's time to fire up the traps again! Even one intact female can bring the population right back to where it was before you TNRed. Once you get all the regulars, you can probably get by only trapping once a year or so to get the newcomers---November and December are the best months for it (in temperate climates in the Northern hemisphere), as the females won't be pregnant or nursing then, and the toms won't be off trying to find ladies in heat.

#2, after males are neutered, they actually get along much better than before. Not being a threat for breeding rights, they'll be allowed to hang with the ladies, instead of being chased off by the stronger toms. So they may be welcomed into another group, or they might hang around with your group, it depends who they like best. But they're definitely better off after neutering, socially speaking.

:lol3: Much more to the point!

 

[ldg]

Good for you for helping the kitties!

#1. . It never really stops. Any time you see a cat you haven't TNRed, it's time to fire up the traps again! Even one intact female can bring the population right back to where it was before you TNRed. Once you get all the regulars, you can probably get by only trapping once a year or so to get the newcomers---November and December are the best months for it (in temperate climates in the Northern hemisphere), as the females won't be pregnant or nursing then, and the toms won't be off trying to find ladies in heat.

#2, after males are neutered, they actually get along much better than before. Not being a threat for breeding rights, they'll be allowed to hang with the ladies, instead of being chased off by the stronger toms. So they may be welcomed into another group, or they might hang around with your group, it depends who they like best. But they're definitely better off after neutering, socially speaking.

:lol3: Much more to the point!

 

[annarrue]

Thank you all for the answers.  Even though I was afraid of the answers I would receive to my question about "what does done look like"  I just hope I can slow down and soon.  I pay a vet about 20 miles from my home $40.00 for each spay/neuter she does and she is one of the few vets around her that will touch a feral.  I usually take her at least two maybe three cats a week. Depends on how much of my paycheck is left.  Then twice a month I take in 2/3 cats(depends on how many and who I can trap) to a feral cat clinic that only charges $20.00 per cat and it is only 10 miles from my house.  It took me for ever to talk the vet into ear tipping the cats I bring in.  It turns out the local rescues don't seem to like ear tipped cats and they had requested that it not be done(?).  Seems strange to me if they are going to be barn cats why would that matter. Puzzling to me.

Anna

 

[Willowy]

Those are good prices! The first batch I did, I paid full price (it came to around $130 each! Spay/neuter and rabies/FVCRP shots) and didn't have them eartipped. The next 2 batches I took to a low-cost place 3 hours away (!) that charges $35 each (spay/neuter, FeLV/FIV test, eartip, all shots). There's now a new vet in the area who charges $50 for females and $35 for males (spay/neuter, eartip, and rabies shot only) as part of a special feral/farmcat program, but I haven't taken any to him yet. Fortunately the population here has stayed the same since I got all the regulars; there's only one new tom and I haven't hurried about catching him since he won't be getting pregnant :tongue2:.

 

[jtbo]

Here single cat is well over $200 with vaccines for rabies, cat flu and something that translates to cat pox I believe. Very small discount from the 2nd one.

 

[annarrue]

WOW!!!  At prices like that I would be living in the empty lot with the cats!!!

Anna

 

[ritz]

When I was actively TNRing (I moved six months ago), I paid around $50 per cat to get TNRd at local rescue facilities; the for-profit making vet wanted between $200 to $800 to neuter/spay a cat. 

At one low cost rescue facility, ear tipping was mandatory; at another, optional.  Depending on how friendly the 'feral' cat was, I opted not to ear tip and he/she was moved into a foster situation. 

And as LDG and Willowy say:  TNR stops when you see no new cats.  And only then.  Sometimes the population stablizes if the food source decreases/is eliminated.

In my case, in 2.5 years, I TNRd around 35 cats.  I lived in a condominum complex, surrounded by single family dwellings and two large apartment complexes.  The area I Iived in has a high rate of foreclosures/evictions:  people moved out and left their cats behind. 

I still feed the cat colony at my old condo on the weekends; of the 35 cats I TNRd, around eight have stuck around.  I don't know what happened to the other cats.

As an aside, whether or not the cat was ear tipped had no bearing on how quickly the cat got adopted; in fact, one person felt a connection to the cat who was ear tipped:  the human had had part of his ear cut off due to cancer.

 

[whaler]

as far as when you are done, i agree with all of the previous posts. for me, due to the physical location of my colony, i have only trapped one since the beginning of this past summer as it is not really an area that will get a large amount of new arrivals.


if i am able to get the cat to the low cost s/n clinic i pay $55 including rabies vaccine. their normal charge is $70 but i normally have my towns animal control officer bring the cat so they pass along the "municipality discount". luckily for me my aco is friendly with one of the vets there. so as long is it is between sun - thur i can call her (the aco) at her house at night and she can get one in the next day for me.

the last few that i have trapped were of course either sick or i caught them on holiday weekends so i could not use the clinic.in these cases i end up getting charged very different prices depending on which vet i am able to get in with. one that i had to bring to the regular vet cost me a little over $350, but i did have them deflea, deworm, test for FIV/FeLV. however, at that same practice i brought one in (limpy) about two years ago since he had an injure leg. the vet examined his leg (broken up in the socket), cleaned and examined his wounds (something attacked him due to his injured leg), gave him antibiotics and altered him. total bill was $75. both of these were at the same practice but the first one was seen by a vet that was very new there (and not really knowledgeable about ferals) and the second one was seen by a more "seasoned" vet who really does "get" feral cats and tnr.