How can I "call out" a feral kitten(s) out of hiding?

I have a sweetheart of a mama and six 3-4 week old kittens that have been dumped at my home.  I have a foster to take them all, BUT...we have only captured 4 of the 6 kittens.  I've never seen anything like it, we have tried for, well, this is the 3rd day.  I can't hand them off to the foster without knowing I have all of them, because I'm afraid without mama to lure them out I'll never get them.  And the foster said I really, REALLY need to get them, that if I give her the 4 and bring her the others if I capture them, they might not make it at all.  We are in an area where there are large free-roaming dogs, coyotes, and foxes, so they are in immediate danger.

Mama is friendly and sweet, babies are wild and scared to death.  I have the babes in a large dog crate with a small dishpan litterbox full of Feline pine--that was all I could find that was non-clumping at the store.  They are actually using the box, but sometimes sleep on top of it.  I am feeding them wet kitten food 3-4 times a day with extra water mixed in, as much as they will eat, and I let mama in with them twice a day to help keep them clean and a couple still nurse a bit.  I tried mixing some KMR with warm water and giving them some in a dish, but they won't touch that.

They appeared on our porch Monday morning, and we captured 3 that day.  Tuesday we managed to capture one more by cornering him/her on the porch.  But there are 2 escapees that ran around the front of our house and up under a row of hedges built into a brick "flowerbed" inset into the front of our house.  We looked and looked, even tried to scare them out with the leafblower, and nothing worked.  Then we discovered a wasp nest in there, so we can't go digging in the thick hedges for them.  Our only hope is for mama to bring them out and up on the porch.

Is there anything we can do to lure them out?  We've tried sitting food out there, even a saucer of real stinky tuna, and nothing.  I know at least one is still in there because mama goes in and out of the hedges, and I saw a furry blur this morning while I was outside feeding the others hop out of the flowerbed in front up into the one under the hedges. 

I know if I wanted mama to go to newborns I could play a recording of kittens crying, but she's at the point she just really doesn't want very much to do with them--at least that's how it seems.  And I want them out of the hedge coming to her, not her going in the hedge to them. 

Any advice?  I apologize in advance if I'm posting this in the wrong place!

Have you tried a drop trap? It might be your best and safest bet. You can look online how to make one. I have even seen them made out of laundry baskets. It may just take lots of perseverance.

Thank you for rescuing them. They will have a much better life. Hopefully Mom gets spayed too so that she will not have endure any more pregnancies.

@ShadowsRescue   We were going to try it, but really there isn't any space near it large enough to set one up.  I wanted you to see a pic of what I'm working in and see if you see somewhere that might work. It's such a bad setup. The only pic I had of the front of the house was from when it was snowy this past winter, but you can get the idea.  Directly under the hedges there is a drainage ditch lined with large rocks, and it has a deep slope to it, it really is a ditch.  They are up under all those hedges, little boogers!!  Hedges go from one end to the other.

At least I know the two are still alive and in there, I caught a glimpse of them yesterday evening.  I practically dove into the hedges, wasps or not, and discovered they climb up in the middle of those hedges, in the thick part, and go up, down, and side to side to escape my arms and hands.  The hedge is so deep that for me to reach back to the window or front wall of the house I have to actually be on my knees, shoulder-deep in hedge, and it limits my movement (not to mention I'm no spring chicken).

Mama cat is definitely getting spayed.  I  talked the foster into taking them by supplying all their food and paying their vet bills until the babies find homes. Mama and all the babies are headed to the vet immediately after I catch these other two.  I am probably going to end up with mama back after the kitty babies find homes, so I am more than willing to pay for it.  If we can only get these two little weasels and get this ball rolling.  It's supposed to rain here tonight and tomorrow, but at least they are up under cover and they will be dry up in this inset.  And I'm leaving mama out, mainly to try to lure them, but hopefully to protect them as well from other animals.  She is one fierce little mama.  She weighs less than 5lb, but she had 6 big healthy kittens. 

Any ideas?  What might work to lure them out and possibly into a trap, since I've tried tuna and cat food and treats? 

Hi hbunny, thank you for trying to help these kittens.

My first suggestion would be to get a humane trap and position it right up against the hedge. Is the mother cat still going to feed them? Could you bring her in with the other kittens now? Those outside kittens are going to be hungry soon if the mother doesn't feed them. I think if you use something very smelly, mackerel or tuna, and give it a few hours they might come out of hiding when they realise there is no one there waiting to grab them.

Do the windows open? If so you could open one window, put the trap there so that if the kittens go indoors they go directly into the trap. 

Another thing you could try is a large piece of netting held into position over the hedges so the kittens can't run out, then try to herd the kittens either in through the window or into a trap. Is there anyone that you could ask to help you with this? I think having two people to herd and another person ready to grab the kittens if they don't go into the trap would be the best way to do this.

@Norachan   Thanks!!  Sorry for the slow reply.  The windows don't open, unfortunately.  However, we have been watching/waiting on them all weekend.  We discovered she is bringing them up to the porch late at night/early mornings to eat out of her food bowls.  The other kitties that we have captured are all eating and drinking well on their own, and we are lining up homes for them already.  The lady who wanted to foster has now decided she may keep all of them.  She is fostering another litter that will be gone to their forever homes by the end of this week, then she is going to go ahead & take the four we have captured even if we don't have the other two yet, while we keep mama kitty and the two others until we get them as well.  I think we have decided to just keep mama ourselves. 

We did try the netting idea, however, they were able to rip right through what we had that was large enough to  cover the entire area.  That area is bigger than I thought, it is about 14 feet across, and all we had was some netting that I used to use over blueberry bushes to protect them from birds.  We discovered over the weekend that our best bet is to corner them on the porch, we caught one Saturday but it wiggled out of hubby's hands like a snake, all hissy-spitty!  Our live traps have too-large of holes in the caging to use, but I did see one online at another store with smaller openings that I am going to stop by and look at this afternoon.  I think since she is bringing them out and up to eat (saw them on camera) that our best bet is to trap them.  We may end up getting mama instead, but it's worth a shot.

Here's a pic of the four little captive boogers!  All they do is eat, sleep, poop, play....and repeat.  They bite each others tails playing so hard they squeal sometimes.  One of the little black ones is kinda hidden in the pic.  They are getting more and more friendly too, I wish I could keep all of them.  I'm a sucker for the babies.

Hi @hbunny  Sorry for not responding sooner, I've only just noticed your update.

Cute kittens! But I can only see three....what have they done with their other little brother?



How's it going with the other two? Are they still outside or have you managed to trap them yet.

Fingers crossed for those last little guys.

Hi @Norachan, lots has happened, I just haven't updated, sorry!  The hedge-dwellers are now shed-dwellers!  Momcat moved them to the shed somehow and got them to stay there.

We found out they are older than I thought.  I took the 4 in to the vet, and he thought they were 6 weeks, no younger, maybe near 7.

I found a wonderful inside-only home for two of the little girls, the black and white in the photo and her solid black fluffy sister.  The lady who took these two has experience with fostering and rescues, and is well prepared to handle the two babies and any possible issues they may have.  She also has an older kitty who has taken them in as her own, so they kinda have a surrogate mama as well.  However, she has sent me many pics of them snuggling up in her son's comforter and looking all cozied in to their new home.

Unfortunately, all four of the others are now outside living under our shed!  The two remaining captives escaped one evening while we were changing crates, and mama was out there watching us and they all immediately scampered to the back yard and the shed.  We turned around and they were gone from the other crate, and when we went frantically looking for them, we saw them playing with their 2 rogue siblings behind our shed (the former hedge-dwellers).  At least, however, I know they are much better protected where they are now, and without the danger of them getting up into our car motors.

Right now, this mama and her 4 remaining kittens PLUS another mama with unknown kittens are sharing the shed.  They hiss at each other, but I actually think they are co-parenting.  We haven't yet seen the other mama's kittens, she had hers about a week or two later than this litter.

Our shed has three separate rooms/areas.  It was a shed with 2 rooms, 2 separate entrances, and you can't go between the two rooms.  We built a lean-to-like structure on one side that is enclosed all the way to the ground where we keep our lawn mowers, etc.  They go under the main shed part, then come out into the lean-to area.  From there they can access one of the interior rooms and they are fully sheltered.  A dog or coyote could not get in at all to where they are, so at least they are safe from them. 

I am trying to be realistic and accept that the chances of me finding homes for them is very slim.  There has been a huge boom of kittens all at once in our area.  In my attempts to find homes for these, a neighbor 2 miles down the road said she suddenly had five black kittens appear at her house, but no mama.  My goal right now is to keep trying to find them homes (and I am offering to pay their spay/neuter when the time comes).  If I don't find them homes before next weekend, I am going to trap them and take them in for vaccinations & worming (I've wormed both mamas) and then if I have no other option, spay/neuter them and let them join the neighborhood. None of the surrounding counties' shelters are accepting cats right now, I've called every one.  I don't know of another option at this point.  My vet saw the four I had captive back on the 10th, and he wanted to wait 2 weeks to give shots to be certain of their age.  I won't be able to take them this upcoming Saturday, so it will be sometime the next week before I can take them in for their first "for-real" vet visit.

The mama of this bunch will be going in for her spay the same day I take the kittens in, and I will be keeping her in the house for a bit to recover--she is very friendly at least and lets me pick her up and carry her around.  I'm going to rely on the other mommy cat to watch the whole brood.  Once she recovers, then it is time for the other to go in for spay.  She is completely feral--that one should be a fun experience

That is eventful!

I'm so glad to hear that you've found a home for two of them. Lucky little girls! Your shed sounds like a really good place for them to be. It's actually kind of nice that the four of them are back together. At least the mother cat will be able to keep an eye on all of them at the same time. I guess the two that you had in the crate are used to being handled? That might make it easier to tame the other kittens, they learn from watching each other. And, of course, a friendly Mama Cat is a huge advantage.

If you don't have homes lined up for them getting them all fixed and vaccinated is the best way to go. Far better than the life they would have had otherwise. Are you happy to feed them all and have them all live in your shed? It sounds like you've got your own little colony in the making.

The cats I care for came to me in a similar way. The kittens that were tame enough for me to trap when they were small went to homes and the warier ones had to be coaxed in and TNR'd later. I think they'll all realise the benefits of human company when the weather starts to get colder.

I'm hoping the two we held captive for a while will allow us to get the other two a bit more friendly.  The two we had were actually purring and snuggling when we would pick them up and hold them.  Yesterday evening we went out to put out food for them and they all stood peering at us from under the shed, but wouldn't come out.  You could tell a few were just dying to investigate us, but weren't quite yet brave enough.  So hopefully, after a few days, they will get more comfortable. 

Plus, last night, my neighbor came and her boyfriend (who lives in another city) wants two to keep as inside pets, so as soon as I can get my hands on two of the wiggly little boogers they have a home.  They are like holding little greased pigs!

Our shed is a great place--if they will stay back there.  My big fear is them getting run over.  We don't live on a main road, but it is a busy road.  As long as they have a fear of vehicles, and mama keeps them back there (there are about 400 acres of woodland behind us) they will be okay, since it is a significant distance from the road.  But, it's like I told my husband, I have to let them go and stand on their own.  He reminds me I can't save the world    And we don't mind the colony, feeding or vetting them is no problem and we appreciate the mouse and vole control, but I don't want them reproducing

Some kitty pics!   These are the 2 braver ones that we held captive for a while!  As you can tell, they are pretty big and their eyes have changed color.  These are the 2 little boys that will be going to a home next, keep your fingers crossed!!  The little grey/white boy is the bravest, I got 2 pics of him--one was with mama eating. 

Aww, they're so sweet!

I'm so glad that you've found homes for another two. It's nice to know they'll be indoor cats and they'll be kept safe. Good luck on coaxing them back in again. Do they play with you? I used to move the last lot of feral kittens I fostered by getting them to follow a wand toy. Maybe you could use one to get them into a crate or back indoors?

Oh, and if you squirt your hands with Feliway spray before you pick them up they're a bit calmer about being handled.

Good luck!

I have Feliway spray, never thought of that, thanks!! And keep your fingers crossed, I may have a home lined up for the last two with a couple as indoor-only as well!!