The First Volunteers

These are the first four cats from the colony that we trapped and had fixed. That's two males and two females less with their reproductive bits!

We've been putting out wet food in the traps (not set to trip) for a while now. The cats have gotten quite used to going in the traps to eat. Even the already fixed ones, who must have been trapped at some point in the past, go in. We decided that we would stand nearby and manually trip the traps with a rope so that we can avoid catching cats that are already fixed.

 "Twice Escaped Orange One"

This  little guy is a kitten from the spring 2015 litters. We actually got him twice in our drop-trap when he was young, but he escaped both times. First because we forgot to reset the door properly (Oops!) and the second because he was big enough to use his weight to get out. It took a number of weeks for him to return to the yard.

 "Tumor Mama"

Tumor Mama might be a peculiar name, but between all of the black cats, we had to find something. This summer, she developed some sort of swollen wound on her neck (that did heal), but gave us an opportunity to name her. She has given birth to at least two litters, one in 2014 and one in 2015. We are glad to have finally gotten her fixed; she would get quite skinny and frail after each litter. Now she can finally retire from exhaustion of birthing.

"Pointy Noise, Big Eyes"

Not the most creative name, but her features set her apart from the other female tabbies. We aren't 100% sure if she had any litters, but she definitely would have been a candidate to breed if we hadn't gotten her.

"Stripes"

 

Unfortunately, we didn't get a good picture of it, but this tabby male has great stripes on his legs. Males travel from colony to colony to spread diversity, and this guy showed up to the colony only a week before we trapped him. Since his release, we have not seen him around.