- Joined
- Dec 5, 2015
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Hi Everyone!
I'm new to this site, and as promised in my introduction post, here's the story of Momma Black. I thought it might be useful to someone out there if I shared our experience with a former feral. When we were going through this, it helped me immensely to talk to my friends at the rescue group I volunteer with about their experiences, and I was searching the internet for any scrap of info I could get my eyes on!
It all started a little over a year ago, when my son and I came home in the evening I heard the unmistakable crying of a kitten. It was October, but it was already below freezing during that week, and this night was no exception. Once I found where it was (under our trailer next to our house), I watched and waited for the mom. At that time I didn't know very much about feral cats. I did know that the mom cats would sometimes leave the kittens in temporary locations if they were in the process of moving them to a new "den," so I went back inside and checked every once in a while out the window. No mom showed up, and that kitten kept crying for her, temperatures continued to drop, so I went and caught the kitten. I managed to get him in to the veterinarian I see for my personal animals that night. She estimated his age to be 4-5 weeks, and other than being pretty underweight, he was healthy. While we cared for him and worked on catching his weight back up, I put out food for the mom, asked neighbours if they had seen any cats or heard any kittens around.... nothing. Food was disappearing, but we never saw who was eating it, until my husband put out a GoPro camera. It was a little black cat, and a giant tuxedo tomcat (the kitten was a tuxedo also). I borrowed traps from the rescue group and trapped the little black cat first. She was the momma cat. I had never done TNR before so when I brought her in the trap to the clinic the vet techs asked for a name for her, which caught me off guard. I came up with the most unoriginal name of all time right on the spot: "Momma Black." Rookie!!
We never did find any more kittens, and I finally TNR'ed the tomcat also. I continued fostering the kitten until he was adopted a couple of months later through the rescue group, the tuxedo tom stopped showing up for his already infrequent visits for food a couple of months after (the clinic vet estimated his age to be 7-8 years), but Momma Black showed up almost every night without fail.
We had a practical problem. We are a military family, and we knew we would be moving away in the near future. When canvassing the neighbourhood to see if anyone had seen other kittens or cats, it was evident that they were not sympathetic to "community cats." We knew no one would be willing to take over looking after Momma Black when we left. She was young also, the clinic vet estimated her age to be a year old, if that, when she was taken care of at the clinic. No other cats were showing up for dinner, and there were no known colonies near our neighbourhood. Things were not looking good for her once we would leave, and besides, I was kinda sorta falling in love with her.
See that little black blurb towards the back? That is Momma Black, and this is the very first photo we managed to get of her!
And this is Momma Black today.
I'm new to this site, and as promised in my introduction post, here's the story of Momma Black. I thought it might be useful to someone out there if I shared our experience with a former feral. When we were going through this, it helped me immensely to talk to my friends at the rescue group I volunteer with about their experiences, and I was searching the internet for any scrap of info I could get my eyes on!
It all started a little over a year ago, when my son and I came home in the evening I heard the unmistakable crying of a kitten. It was October, but it was already below freezing during that week, and this night was no exception. Once I found where it was (under our trailer next to our house), I watched and waited for the mom. At that time I didn't know very much about feral cats. I did know that the mom cats would sometimes leave the kittens in temporary locations if they were in the process of moving them to a new "den," so I went back inside and checked every once in a while out the window. No mom showed up, and that kitten kept crying for her, temperatures continued to drop, so I went and caught the kitten. I managed to get him in to the veterinarian I see for my personal animals that night. She estimated his age to be 4-5 weeks, and other than being pretty underweight, he was healthy. While we cared for him and worked on catching his weight back up, I put out food for the mom, asked neighbours if they had seen any cats or heard any kittens around.... nothing. Food was disappearing, but we never saw who was eating it, until my husband put out a GoPro camera. It was a little black cat, and a giant tuxedo tomcat (the kitten was a tuxedo also). I borrowed traps from the rescue group and trapped the little black cat first. She was the momma cat. I had never done TNR before so when I brought her in the trap to the clinic the vet techs asked for a name for her, which caught me off guard. I came up with the most unoriginal name of all time right on the spot: "Momma Black." Rookie!!
We never did find any more kittens, and I finally TNR'ed the tomcat also. I continued fostering the kitten until he was adopted a couple of months later through the rescue group, the tuxedo tom stopped showing up for his already infrequent visits for food a couple of months after (the clinic vet estimated his age to be 7-8 years), but Momma Black showed up almost every night without fail.
We had a practical problem. We are a military family, and we knew we would be moving away in the near future. When canvassing the neighbourhood to see if anyone had seen other kittens or cats, it was evident that they were not sympathetic to "community cats." We knew no one would be willing to take over looking after Momma Black when we left. She was young also, the clinic vet estimated her age to be a year old, if that, when she was taken care of at the clinic. No other cats were showing up for dinner, and there were no known colonies near our neighbourhood. Things were not looking good for her once we would leave, and besides, I was kinda sorta falling in love with her.
See that little black blurb towards the back? That is Momma Black, and this is the very first photo we managed to get of her!
And this is Momma Black today.
I know she's one in a million (in so many ways!)...as my husband says " we're lucky Flick chose us." I think it sounds like Momma Black chose you 
