Hi all,
I am an active member of the TNR&F (Trap-Neuter-Release & Feed) community. I have to date TNR'd around 50 ferral cats and kittens. It is a non-trivial process, but frankly a very rewarding one in my view. In the SFV suburb of Los Angeles, MexiCalifornia, US of Mexico, there are several either low-cost or completely free neutering clinics. One which I frequent is operated by the FixNation.com kitty charity organization. If truly ferral, the kitties are neutered for free complete with shots, but I always donate their non-ferral prices, which is around $75 each. Considering the local commercial vets charge around $450 + meds, that remains an excellent deal and it helps the overall TNR community as well as our little guys.
I also have a number of (now) socialized ex-ferral kitties that I regularly feed and generally care for and whom I consider to be my out-doors-only extension of my family kitties.
Currently, there are ten kitties in that colony and with a new member having appeared in the last few weeks to which I have assigned the name 'bootsy'. He is a handsome character, all white (including whiskers) with black paws, black patches on his tail and head. However for such a large kitty he sure is a whiner, but is very pushy. That kitty is full grown and fully tame. The first night he appeared as I was feeding the colony (on my back-porch, where I have a cold-weather kitty 'warm' structure which is comfy and rain proof, bootsy tried to go right into my house, and hopped up onto my gal's lap! That's fairly tame in my book, considering we were all strangers. I am keeping him outdoors, as I have four indoor/outdoor kitties now. Here in MexiCalifornia, 5 indoor kitties is the limit, four is two too many for me! I am searching around the area to determine if someone has lost their 'indoor only' kitty. When I first saw him, his coat was silky, as though he had been recently combed, and he was voraciously hungry. Now, his coat has that coarseness one feels when touching an outdoors colony kitty.
Ad rem...so over the past few years, as I am certain that others have experienced, when ants swarm all over kitty food, kitties, who are picky about their food, unless very hungry, won't eat the food. I have tried many different strategies to keep ants off the food, all of those strategies have failed for one reason or another. However, I have finally developed a simple but very effective and long lasting solution. It may same strange at first sight, but trust me, it works.
Simply stated, ants and roaches will not cross a motor-oil barrier. I use a dog-food gravity auto-feeder filled with dry catfood. I 'open' the cat food in the morning for a couple of hours and then close it until early evening and then 're-open'. I 'close' the autofeeder by placing a large-enough cardboard box to cover and enclose the feeder. That keeps the opossums from eating all the food.
I take a cardboard box, large enough for the feeder to fit within the bottom of the box, but I cut the sides down to about 1 or 2 inches high. I place a cut to fit heavy aluminum-foil (CostCo restraunt foil, 24" W x 99' long, two in a package for $12) sheet to fit inside the bottom of the card-board box. I glue (ShoeGlue or Goop, both of which are exactly the same chemistry, but different size tubes and prices), glue the foil into the bottom of the box, a randomly distributed drop of glue here and there, but especially around the edges. Then I take several sheets of paper-towels although cloth would likely work as well and I pour spots of motor-oil on to the paper-towels, the spots will spread eventually covering the entire sheet, but not sopping wet. I then place within the aluminum-foil lined box with motor oily paper-towels the auto-feeder. Using a finger (wearing nitrile gloves) I smear a little amount of oil onto the bottom support rim of the auto-feeder, just in case an ant should find a clear non-oil path to the feeder. But if the paper-towel is properly oiled, that will not happen. I have been using this strategy for seven years. Of course there are other possible configurations. The idea is simple, keep the ants off, while isolating the kitties from having oily paws, with no possible injestion of the (toxic to living beings) motor oil.
I recently purchased a Rostock 3D printer and I am developing a prototype manually 'gated' auto-feeder with an in-built ant oil-barrier. Later, I plan to add solar-panel charged battery powered, microprocessor timed feed-gate.
Best Wishes for All,
AlphaKitty
I am an active member of the TNR&F (Trap-Neuter-Release & Feed) community. I have to date TNR'd around 50 ferral cats and kittens. It is a non-trivial process, but frankly a very rewarding one in my view. In the SFV suburb of Los Angeles, MexiCalifornia, US of Mexico, there are several either low-cost or completely free neutering clinics. One which I frequent is operated by the FixNation.com kitty charity organization. If truly ferral, the kitties are neutered for free complete with shots, but I always donate their non-ferral prices, which is around $75 each. Considering the local commercial vets charge around $450 + meds, that remains an excellent deal and it helps the overall TNR community as well as our little guys.
I also have a number of (now) socialized ex-ferral kitties that I regularly feed and generally care for and whom I consider to be my out-doors-only extension of my family kitties.
Currently, there are ten kitties in that colony and with a new member having appeared in the last few weeks to which I have assigned the name 'bootsy'. He is a handsome character, all white (including whiskers) with black paws, black patches on his tail and head. However for such a large kitty he sure is a whiner, but is very pushy. That kitty is full grown and fully tame. The first night he appeared as I was feeding the colony (on my back-porch, where I have a cold-weather kitty 'warm' structure which is comfy and rain proof, bootsy tried to go right into my house, and hopped up onto my gal's lap! That's fairly tame in my book, considering we were all strangers. I am keeping him outdoors, as I have four indoor/outdoor kitties now. Here in MexiCalifornia, 5 indoor kitties is the limit, four is two too many for me! I am searching around the area to determine if someone has lost their 'indoor only' kitty. When I first saw him, his coat was silky, as though he had been recently combed, and he was voraciously hungry. Now, his coat has that coarseness one feels when touching an outdoors colony kitty.
Ad rem...so over the past few years, as I am certain that others have experienced, when ants swarm all over kitty food, kitties, who are picky about their food, unless very hungry, won't eat the food. I have tried many different strategies to keep ants off the food, all of those strategies have failed for one reason or another. However, I have finally developed a simple but very effective and long lasting solution. It may same strange at first sight, but trust me, it works.
Simply stated, ants and roaches will not cross a motor-oil barrier. I use a dog-food gravity auto-feeder filled with dry catfood. I 'open' the cat food in the morning for a couple of hours and then close it until early evening and then 're-open'. I 'close' the autofeeder by placing a large-enough cardboard box to cover and enclose the feeder. That keeps the opossums from eating all the food.
I take a cardboard box, large enough for the feeder to fit within the bottom of the box, but I cut the sides down to about 1 or 2 inches high. I place a cut to fit heavy aluminum-foil (CostCo restraunt foil, 24" W x 99' long, two in a package for $12) sheet to fit inside the bottom of the card-board box. I glue (ShoeGlue or Goop, both of which are exactly the same chemistry, but different size tubes and prices), glue the foil into the bottom of the box, a randomly distributed drop of glue here and there, but especially around the edges. Then I take several sheets of paper-towels although cloth would likely work as well and I pour spots of motor-oil on to the paper-towels, the spots will spread eventually covering the entire sheet, but not sopping wet. I then place within the aluminum-foil lined box with motor oily paper-towels the auto-feeder. Using a finger (wearing nitrile gloves) I smear a little amount of oil onto the bottom support rim of the auto-feeder, just in case an ant should find a clear non-oil path to the feeder. But if the paper-towel is properly oiled, that will not happen. I have been using this strategy for seven years. Of course there are other possible configurations. The idea is simple, keep the ants off, while isolating the kitties from having oily paws, with no possible injestion of the (toxic to living beings) motor oil.
I recently purchased a Rostock 3D printer and I am developing a prototype manually 'gated' auto-feeder with an in-built ant oil-barrier. Later, I plan to add solar-panel charged battery powered, microprocessor timed feed-gate.
Best Wishes for All,
AlphaKitty
