Later we will be
posting ferals #9 & 10, fixed today, but we wanted to document where
the colony stands now. We know of
and regularly recognize 45 cats in the colony (a new one appeared last night, possibly a transient male). Of the 45 known, there are
now 22 that are not fixed. Of these, we
have our targeted priorities, and we are effectively making it through our
list. Half of the 22 (11 exactly) are this past
summer’s kittens we did not catch (now that we have developed a method for
catching the kittens, we hope to let fewer of these grow up in the colony – on a
side note, all of this summer’s caught kittens were successfully socialized and
adopted out!). The growing kittens are
not of breeding age yet, but we are targeting the young males. We want to get them before they become
transients and are more difficult to catch.
The unfixed females will maintain residence in our yards with the food
sources, like the fixed cats, and we have several months (until approximately
next April) to get to them before they start producing new kittens. Several of
the cats have just given birth, and we cannot humanely trap them until their
kittens are weaned. Taking them for 36
hours would mean death to their kittens.
That’s probably it for this fall’s kittens though, so that’s good. No more known pregnant cats. Several of the new moms have no
problem feeding from the traps, so we will catch them once they become
eligible. A couple of the cats are of
little breeding concern as, while they are around, they are not accepted
members of the colony and do not get much in the way of breeding “rights”, like former featured member “Balls”. They are lower on our list than
the male kittens, but we will be fixing them soon enough anyway. In the end, not counting the kittens and
currently ineligible females, this leaves 7 cats we would very much like to fix
soon. These are pretty encouraging numbers! Wish us luck in finishing this by Spring!
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