Feral #46

This is the latest in the year we have ever tried to trap. It is harder to trap in the cold months with less light and less cat activity, but we felt like we had to try trapping this girl.

"Injured One"

This poor cat suffered from some sort of severe skin irritation. We can't be sure if her condition was some sort of severe dermatitis from an allergic reaction to something or if it was a type of autoimmune disease. Originally we thought she had been attacked by an animal, car, or human.  One entire side, and only one side, looked like she had been shot at by a pellet gun. However, we've tracked her and tried to trap her for almost a year since that first sighting, and the condition only worsened during that time. So, we knew something else was wrong. We knew it was unlikely to be contagious too, as no disease matches this skin condition (we did do a photo consult at one point to get a second opinion), and all of the other cats are healthy. She always had seeping, open wounds all over, and always moved as if in extreme pain. Somehow she made it through a pregnancy in late summer this year, and we're not really sure how. A little over a week ago she finally started coming to our yard for food and hanging out there (after never being in the yard previously) and she would desperately eat. So we were finally able to trap her. Seeing her up close for the first time was even more heart-breaking. The picture above was of the "good" side, and the other side was like something out of a horror movie. When we got her to the vet, we immediately asked their professional opinion to see if it matched with what we thought should be done. It was almost instant: she should be put down. There would be no way to treat her for whatever condition she may have, and it would be cruel to release her to continue to live in this state.

Finally, we'd like to emphasis that no other cats in the colony display signs of this affliction or any other chronic disease (at most, they occasionally pass around a mild head cold).

Feral #45

We've been trying to catch this girl for what feels like a very, very long time. She only comes into the utility easement, and if we are there to watch, she just stares at us. Stone-cold stare-down.

 "Starey"

Starey is another trapping that was only successful thanks to our Blink camera. Whenever we set up the trap and she comes around, she never goes in. She just sits outside of it and stares at us. And she knows if we are watching through the fence slats.  With the camera in place, she didn't think we were watching. She went right into the trap with no hesitation.

Of all of the mature cats we have trapped, Starey is the first one to poop in the trap over night. Some of the very young cats have, but they drop it on one end of the cage and then spend the rest of the time on the other end. Starey ended up covered in hers. It was disgusting. We transferred her to a clean cage and the vet bathed her after she went under anesthesia.

She has had at least one litter that we know of in the past, but we assume there have been more (we've seen her pregnant more than once, but could only verify kittens once). Thankfully there will be no more from her in the future!

Feral #44

This little lady showed up on trapping night, and had been on our list before, but disappeared for so long that we thought she had left. Turns out, she just didn't like us.

"Cream Muzzle Pink Nose or CMPN"

We spotted CMPN off in the distance on the same night we caught Feral #43, so we had to put her back on our attendance list. She is around 18 months old and has had at least one litter that we know of.

When we set up for the evening, we usually have a pretty good idea of which cats we might catch or hope to catch. However, when an unfixed cat goes into the trap, we take whoever it is because we don't want to miss any opportunities. We were hoping for a couple of different cats this evening, but we are happy with this trap. We definitely consider females to be more valuable targets than males when it comes to population control. She can go ahead and live out her life now without having to deal with those pesky males and kittens.

Bonus: Another successful use of the Blink camera!

Feral #43

We tried a new piece of equipment in this trapping. The unfixed cats come to the yard so infrequently now; it was time to get help from the 21st Century!

"Cross-eyed Small Black Goggles" 

We call this fella "Goggles" because his "Nictitating Membrane" ("Third Eyelid" or "Haw") are always showing. This can be a sign of disease or infection but none of the other cats in the colony have this condition right now. There used to be one like this that we trapped before. 

The 21st Century help we got was from a Blink camera from Amazon.

This allowed us to lower the trap over the fence into the utility easement and then remotely monitor who was going in and out. The system switches to an infrared setting that lets us see in the dark and finally catch this cat. No unfixed cats went into the trap before sunset, and without the ability to see in the dark, we would have never caught this guy. This video is from when we were lifting the trap out of the utility easement with the infrared activated.

Feral #42

This young gentleman is part of a litter that was born last year.  We have been monitoring him and his litter-mates, and he is the first one to get close enough to our property to trap.

"Copper Marbles"

Trapping Copper Marbles was actually a side effect of trying to trap a different cat.  A couple of different cats, actually.  Copper Marbles has been around, but not as consistently as several others that we have had our eye on.  The two we wanted the most were there, but one didn't go in the trap, and the other went in, but seemed to vanish out of thin air as the trap door closed. To our fortune, Copper here popped through the fence and went right in the trap; the night was not a total bust!

Feral #40 & 41

It has been almost a year since our last trapping.

This entire time we've known about a couple of unfixed females, and they have of course had kittens over the last year (sigh), but they have either come over very inconsistently, or not at all and have only been visible from a distance (in other yards).  Finally, over the course of the last month, several of the older kittens from this past year's litters have started attending dinner on a regular basis, and we've jumped at the opportunity.

"Little Girl" 

This little girl recently started showing up for dinner on a daily basis.  She was quick to figure out the trap, and preferred it as a less interruptible eating spot.  After a week or so of the same routine, we knew it was time to make an appointment.  On trap night, we kept to the same feeding routine as normal, and she went right in.  It only took a couple of minutes!

"Fat Face Gray"

 

This guy is officially the smartest male we've come across.  Most toms, when they encounter the trap for the first time, will circle around it for several minutes before leaving because they can't figure out how to get the food on the inside.  Not this dude.  We lowered the trap into our utility easement and he figured it out and went in less than five minutes later.  Thanks for making it easy on us!  This cat is probably father to a large number of the cats born over the last couple of years.  Most of the males are so inconsistent we don't even list them as official colony members, but we've seen this one on and off regularly for at least 2 years now.  He has just never been around on a consistent enough basis for trapping.  We were fishing for more of the mature kittens the other night, like "little girl", but we're not picky.  An unfixed cat went in the trap.  We weren't going to pass that up!

Celebrating 40 Cats!

   

We picked up this bottle of wine at a local liquor store about a year ago, after fixing #39, to celebrate #40, not knowing we'd have to wait so long to drink it.  It's a fund-raiser bottle for the Humane Society we've been working with, and we feel at this point that a shout-out is necessary.  Without their commitment to the welfare of local cats, we would be overrun with ferals, and at this point our neighbors or town may have used alternative methods to solve the problem.  So thank you Wild at Heart for providing low-cost vouchers for feral cat spay/neuter, Humane Society of Boulder Valley for accepting the vouchers and fixing the cats, and Alley Cat Allies for providing information we can pass on to new neighbors.  Cheers!

Predators

We recently found the very cleanly severed front quarter of the feral cat we called Crazy Legs and believe a coyote caught him. Crazy Legs didn't have very good control of his back half and was generally very clumsy.  We assumed it was some sort of neuromuscular condition, and most likely Feline Cerebellar Hypoplasia. This probably made him the easiest target for a coyote. Coyotes do roam in and around town, we have heard them, and they have been sighted down the block. It is easy to forget that even though we live in suburbia, Mother Nature is not very far away, and these feral cats have to interact with her.

There aren't many other local predators in the area that we think would attack a cat.  The local great-horned owls could take a cat, but it is unlikely to leave one in the state we found Crazy. 

We have 36 cats on our list that have disappeared since we started this project (using our attendance tracking technique). This is the first adult cat we have actually found deceased.

RIP Crazy Legs