I got one trapped!! Yahhooo

All - my first kitty caught last night, at the vets
this morning. BEAUTIFUL girl. Long feathers of fur
in a cream, white, grey and buff mix. Absolutely
a doll. I feel terrible putting her out. I think she
would be a nice kitty if not so terribly shy and scared.

I've seen her a couple of times, but she was one who
always ran. Lives under the shed there I think.

I am going to hold a day or two in large carrier
for recovery period. Am crossed finger right now
that she will not be nursing or preggers when they
look at her today.

Please not!! I will be takin gthe cost on the chin -
since I had no green sheet and this vet doesn't
do much with the Humane Society now. (They
wanted me to only go to one vet which means
only trapping on ONE day a week. And
so far both of those days have been a bust
weather and trap wise. So, I figure we needed
to trap as many days as we could while it was
warm out - to interrupt that breeding cycle!!)

Hope my pocket book holds out. It would be so
grand if the little girl became friendly in recovery,
but I don't think she would. She's really a very
lovely looking girl. There is also a grey fluffy male
I think ... he too is good looking.

Prob. the Daddy of this girl. I'm aiming for him, or for the littlest cat
(just in heat now 4-6 months old) next.

Oh, and I saw Grey running GULP across my road, he made it and
was on my side, headed to my food bowl I think, as I went off
to the vet with my feral. With luck we WILL get him too,
before breeding begins!

Wish me a gaint dose of luck, and hopefully hopefully
we get Mr. Grey, along with these guys!! Mr. Grey
is one I want to tame down, and I think he WOULD
tame nicely...

Cheers and thanks for all the good vibes folks!

All - Its official. My beautiful
feral was 2 wks short of delivery
and I am having 3 kittens from her.

The kittens will
go into the vet office adoption program. Then, Momma
gets spayed and returned to the wild provided she
doesn't have feline AIDS Everyone pray hard. I
want her to have a chance - kittens too - at
a GOOD life

I have an 8-10 week window to tame her. If she
tames, then she also might be a candiate for
placement. She is barely 2 years old herself.

Congratulations on trapping this girl! She doesn't know it yet, but she's very lucky that you are giving her a safe and warm place to have her kittens.

I don't recall if you have much experience socializing ferals. Here's a detailed article on the process: http://straypetadvocacy.org/html/soc...feral_cat.html 8-10 weeks may be pushing it, especially with kittens involved (they tend to get VERY protective of their kittens, so be prepared for that!), but you should know if you're making any progress with her by then. Good luck!

I merged these two threads so we can all keep track of your story and progress with her.

NADA experience w/ ferals, but plenty with cats of all
stripes from terrified to outgoing love balls...

Since she' s Moma to be, I figure she'll hide lots.
We are bringing home in large carrier and vet
is giving me a cage to keep her in at first in
"her" room (nice basement room with not much but
bed, shelves and 2 windows to the outside world...

No where for her to run away, except under da bed
.. and her carrier/cage area (both covered to help feel
secure).

Am aware of blinkies, not looking at, and just
sitting and talking to her... Am wondering
how soon I'll be allowed to handle the kits,
but that's for 2 wks from now, LOL!!

Am hoping I'll have her out of the house before
my Dad arrives, I'll catch hell from him, but
hey, my house, my life, my decisions...

But she's welcomed to stay till the kits
are ready to go (probably going to have
them at the vets at earliest opportunity, as
I may have even MORE kittens to deal with
shortly ... if the other girl cats are running
preggers right now..) The colony has about
11 cats or so total...

Wonderful job!

ohmy!!! how wonderful!! YAY!!!

I am so happy for you - sending lots and lots of vibes your way for all involved

Great job! Depending on how protective she is, you should handle the kittens as soon as possible. With JinJin, her fear of me overrode her protectiveness. If I approached the nest, she would jump out and stand a few feet away while I picked up the babies. I was in the same boat as you are. She delivered 5 days after being trapped.

Can you still TNR the others while you're raising these babies? Especially that kitten in heat. At her age, having a litter would be dangerous, I would think. Also, the more kittens you can prevent...

I would put something with your scent in her "nesting' box so when you want to start approaching the babies it might go better. have fun!!

Thanks to all for the suggestions and
bon mots!

Thanks to reading here, I knew
what to do for a litter box (garbage bag
on floor, covered with paper, with
pile of pine litter nugget on top.)

She's using it beautifully!!

She ate finally sometime last night.
I am putting in a piece of clothing
(unwashed smelly panties and under
shirt - sigh, how glam!)

Now, I have 3 other cats to catch who
I suspect are also very pregger and very
close to their times. Sigh.

Today will be very
windy and cold so not a good trapping night
I think. Just going to leave out the food.

I am trying for another
one on Sunday night to bring in
Monday am if at all possible,
and then again, going to try trapping Monday
night and bringing in Tuesday.

That way, I'll have them together and
all done - at least if I'm very very lucky!

Pray I get the females
before they kitten, please!!

Thanks to all for their support and assistance!

WOW!
Congratulations and thanks SO much, for caring for "the least of the little ones"... YOU are making a difference in this world!

((((come on pregnant girls))))

Are you planning to foster all of these by yourself? That's a monumental task! Do you know of anyone else who will help you? As someone who took in a pregnant feral last year, I can tell you that even fostering one litter is a ton of work, two or three would have done me in! Please try to find someone to help you, I'd hate to see you burn out on all of this by trying to do it all yourself.

How's the "little mama" doing? She sounds like a real beauty!

Clipix - I hope to foster all the preggers I can catch - maybe 2 at this point, since last night I got no one!

(Although I found out who is trap smart - big Grey fluffy Daddy cat is the one that can steal bait and not trigger the trap, smart, smart boyo!!)

I want the kittens with me, rather than having to later go back and try and trap them. Sigh. It is VERY hard.

I will have 3 kittens and one feral momma. The kits are with me
for about 8 weeks from birth - then off to the vets to go
into cages and get adopted from the vets. I HOPE Momma feral
(Zazou is her name now) will be able to feed them etc. If not,
yes, I'll be doing the bottle feeding.

I will have all 3 kittens in a large room with Zazou, and take them out one or 2 at a time to interact w/ me and MY cats for periods ranging from an hour
to an hour and 1/2.

I am thinking wistfully - hopefully my young gal
Lexi (3 yrs old) will have some materal instincts with them,
and lick and take care of, although I'm not betting on it. The senior
cats will avoid like the plauge and/or simply ignore.

And I have not had kits in years, so this will be quite a trying time. As I recall kittens are like 2 year olds on steroids and hyperactive to boot.

I am roping in my neighbor to come and visit and play with them, and they will even get exposed to her cute cat friendly Bichon, Sam. Sam LOOOVES cats - they just dont like him, LOL. So, I hope the kittens will be unafraid of dogs by the time I hand them over to the vet staff.

Wish me luck with trapping again tonight or tomorrow. I may try with Popeye's chicken again tonight. Or tuna. Which ever seems to be more smelly and likely to attract.

Good for you,we recently had a stray who had 5 beautiful kittens on Dec.22,2005 and just this past weekend everyone went to their furrr-ever homes including mom! We need more people like us out there...

Originally Posted by KittyCity81

Good for you,we recently had a stray who had 5 beautiful kittens on Dec.22,2005 and just this past weekend everyone went to their furrr-ever homes including mom! We need more people like us out there...

Click to expand...

aww thats sweet,As that day was my birthday you could name them after me

LOL...their new mommy's got to name them! But if we could have named them we would have named one after you