Catching stray kittens in the yard/forest

[ebinmaine 79,195]

Yesterday Trina was around the house and heard what she figured was a catbird. 

Being interested in birds as we all are here she went looking around for it out the windows. 

What she found wasn't a catbird. It was a little orange kitten. 

Obviously very timid and likely wild, it was not approachable. 

Trina left an open tin of my sardines out. The kitten enjoyed them. 

 

 

Trina and I both thought we oughtta try to catch it and then consider keep vs adopt out. We have several excellent shelters around and a great organization called Friends of Feral Felines. 

She went to town and bought a small animal trap and some food. 

We set the trap and left it out overnight near the last known kitten location.  

Side yard. 

 

 

Then.... this morning rolled around.  

 

You can see the silver of the trap kind of set behind that big rock there. Yesterday Trina set that hoping to catch the orange cat that we had seen and heard.

This morning we got up to find the trap had a dark animal in it!!

Obviously not an orange cat. So I went outside and discovered a black kitten. There was also several other cats around.

If you zoom in on that trap a little bit you can see a dark colored lump at the upper right and an orange colored lump right between the trap and the rock. They are having some breakfast that I put out after I discovered there were more cats out there.

 

Soooo...  this morning Trina set to making a kitten cage out of scraps we had laying around. 

Use what ya have!

This is built with old ballusters and some hardware cloth/wire mesh. 

See the former deck gate at picture left.  

 

 

Handles added for ease of humans. 

 

The hinge is a piece of black leather.  

 

 

Here's the black kitten resting in its temporary room. 

 

 

 

We've since added a piece of carpet to block our neurotic dog from seeing the cage occupants and also covered the whole kitten capturing set up with a pop up.  

 

We left the black kitten out in the forest because the other two (that we've seen) have been coming by to visit so we're hoping to catch all three.  

[WHX?? 56,900]

Send me one I could use another mouser. 

[ri702bill 12,271]

What? No WH parts in the build???  I expected to see a C 85 hood latch... or two. 

[ebinmaine 79,195]