It didn't take long

Now that Scooter has moved into the Sanctuary, we are down to having only three ferals in our little colony. However, Sunday night my husband saw Nathan chase a dark long-haired cat out of the yard and then last night I looked out and saw this cat munching away on the food I had placed out there just about an hour before. The cat is a large long-haired classic brown Tabby. It was dark out and he was hunkered down, so I didn't get a very good look.

Unfortunately, we will be traveling over the holiday and the girl who takes care of the cats comes only in the morning. I'm afraid this new cat is here only at night (but, who knows), so he may miss out on any food and may move on to new digs before we return. I'm going to have the girl leave an extra huge amount of food so there will (hopefully) be food left at night for him - though it will likely be frozen. Oh well, frozen crunchy food is better than no food.

Wow, if that isn't the "Vacuum Effect" in action I don't know what is. Good luck with the new feral Renae!

Have a safe trip, and I hope he's around when you get back. Wow - that really didn't take long!

Renae can you set up a feeder for them? Take a 30 gallon trash can with a secure lid- cut a golfball size hole in the side along the bottom- place it somewhere out of the weather- and fill it with dry food? When the food falls out the hole and plugs up, the cat simply reaches it's paw into the hole to dislodge the food, and it spills out.

Mary Anne, That sounds like an excellent idea. My only concern is that the racoons would empty it by the end of the first day. It is amazing at how industrious they are when they find a good source of food.

Have you tried using a feeding station like this when there are racoons around?

Laurie, we won't leave until next week (Monday) so hopefully he will become attached to the yard (and our food) before then.

We have a lot of racoons around here. Gary probably trapped as many coons as he did cats last year, LOL! When we had a feeder out, it was up on a table - and although that doesn't necessarily deter the coons, we only had to replace the food about every week - which worked well for cleaning it.

Oh - I should probably add - and the feeder was back up in the woods behind our home, not just out back the home, which would have further discouraged the wild animals, I think.

Yep- I use it but I put it up on a platform- and although the coons and the skunks and opossums can get up there with difficulty the cats can make the leap with ease-

Aaaah! A platform! You two are just too clever! I'm gonna try this for our Scooter Replacement Cat.

It sure didn't take long for a new face to come by.

I hope the feeder idea on a platform works. I don't have to worry about raccoons in Australia.

I take no credit for being clever. MA gave me the idea!

Lots of luck Renae and enjoy your trip.

We hadn't seen this cat since we returned from our trip Christmas week, so we assumed he had moved on.

But, last night I saw movement out of the corner of my eye, so I stayed for a moment (I was inside) and watched. Out of the darkness came this long-haired, scruffy looking cat. He(?) has a mane that looks like the whiskers on Yosemite Sam -- big poofs under each cheek -- so he's kinda goofy looking.

This one seems really wild and scared, so I'm going to have to set a trap for him. We are expecting snow tonight, so I'll wait until the weather looks a bit better. Wish me luck and let's hope that Carlin (the new grey cat) doesn't chase Yosemite Sam off when when he (Carlin) comes home from his neutering this afternoon (we left him at the vet overnight).

Sometimes it feels never-ending, doesn't it? I love the name Yosemite Sam! Keep us posted on how the trapping goes. Poor guy, sounds like he needs some TLC.

Last night when we came home, I let Carlin (who was just neutered) out of the cage gave him some good scritches and then I went inside. I looked out and saw several cats by Carlin, so I went out thinking that there was going to be saome trouble. I picked up Nathan (who is still not wanting Carlin to join the colony) and went to see how Carlin was doing. Once I got out to Carlin, I realized that the other cat out there was Yosemite...and Yosemite was asking me to pet him!!!!!!!

Yosemite did what I call the "coy boy" routine of rubbing against my car, rolling, and looking at me with the "please pet me" look, but he stayed just out of reach so I couldn't do more than let him rub my finger. (Though his staying just out of reach may have been due to the fact that I was still holding Nathan, who was obviously very unhappy about Yosemite being there.)

I am sooooo excited! I may be able to simply put Yosemite in a cage rather than trapping him, though I want to give him time to get used to me before I do that.

Woo Hoo!

Keep rounding them up Renae, strays or ferals - they need snipping!

BTW - WAY TO GO GIRL!!!!!