Catching stray kittens in the yard/forest

[ebinmaine 79,222]

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?? 56,957]

Send me one I could use another mouser. 

[ri702bill 12,275]

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

[ebinmaine 79,222]

[Beap52 2,314]

Feral cats are about as welcome as feral hogs.   Feral cats are hard on bird populations and feral hogs are hard on about everything. 

 

Some folks have no regards about the animals they dump off to defend for themselves.  

 

Without you and Trina, those kittens would have likely had a slow and painful demise. 

[Sparky-(Admin) 25,622]

Love hearing how your dealing with these kittens. 
  Have a soft spot for cats even since the first one came to live here maybe 18 years ago. He was the “family cat” but he became my cat and followed me everywhere. He passed 2 years ago at the age of 16 but it gave me a new appreciation for cats. 
  Our current cat “Bill” is about 8 years old and he’s been awesome! 
 

 

[WHX?? 56,957]

Hate to say this but Beaps is right. Now truth be told I am not a cat lover but I hate mice worse. Not that i don't have and feed a few barn cats. But absolutely no cats in the house. 

I'm weird... I absolutely adore the smell of cow$hit... can tolerate pig$hit but the smell of a cat box has me reeling. 

I've had literally thousands of cats come thru the ranch in the last 40 years. 

Some die naturally in old age some at the hands of owls and other natural predators. Some even at the hands of me. 

I cherish them all but the song birds think I am an a$$hole. 

What you are doing is a good thing EB. 

Sitting on porch tonite... cocktail in one hand Tom in the other. 

Then there's Pearl... pretty much worthless but does bring in a mole or a pine squirrel from time to time. Can't look at her without getting hair. 

Edited 20 hours ago by WHX??

[8ntruck 8,978]

@Sparkey your cat looks very similar to the cat we had when I was a kid.  His name was Colby - due to his fondness for Colby cheese as a kitten.  He used to sit on top of the TV and watch baseball games - occasionally taking a swipe at the players.

Edited 20 hours ago by 8ntruck

[Bill D 2,904]

1 hour ago, Sparky said:

Our current cat “Bill” is about 8 years old and he’s been awesome! 
 

Like the name!  😁

[kpinnc 18,558]

Our county has a feral program where they trap them, spay and neuter them, get their immunizations up, and adopt them out for free to farms and anyone who will take them. They notch one ear so they are easily identified if they return to the wild later. 

 

We adopted three and they were intended to be barn cats. Clearly these people never met my wife...  And these little turds can tell time too. Here they are waiting for dinner... 

 

 

[ebinmaine 79,222]

Morning update. 

We now have two of three known kittens in cage/trap. 

 

The momma cat is also captured. All appear from the outside to be very healthy. Clean soft fur. Aware. Quite apprehensive about being confined, as expected.  

 

 

[squonk 46,950]

My cat Charlie is 17. He gets up a 4 am everyday and wants to head downstairs for a drink and his breakfast. We have a gate across the stairs so our young foxhound Faith doesn't come up the stairs and jump in our bed in the middle of the night. 

 

So now my body is trained to wake up around 4AM. We have a motion light on top of the stairs. Charlie turns it on and I get up. If he doesn't get up I lay there and wait for the light to come on. At 5AM the light comes on. Today it was 5:01 Faith is waiting on the stairs landing wanting to go out. So I got to "sleep in" 

 

 

[Thegearhead0324 1,558]

I am a cat lover, maybe more than humans, as we have 5 of them. 3 out of the 5 were strays from outside, and turned out to be the best and most appreciative ones we have. The other 2, one is 19 years old on his way out, the other was the kitten of our stray cat. But we love them as our kids. Each one has a story. 

[953 nut 66,767]

After loosing a battle with cancer our long time four legged member of the family passed away about eight years ago. My wife said no more pets! A few months later she heard about a couple of kittens that had been born under the Episcopal church and we went to see them. The kittens were about ten to twelve weeks old and had feral tendencies but the mother cat was very sweet. The next thing I heard my wife say was "we will take all three."

The kittens will never be lap cats but they do love to be petted and are only shy around people they haven't gotten to know, it takes a couple of days or one feeding!

[ebinmaine 79,222]

We went out to the workshop and gave the momma cat some breakfast. She's resting. Wasn't interested in the food while we watched but I'm sure it'll be consumed by now. 

 

The orange tabby kitten is now in with the black one. The calico kitten is exploring around the cage. We're hoping it gets hungry enough to set aside the apprehension for the trap....

 

[squonk 46,950]

Another pic of Charlie in his kitty apartment. He doesn't go in it as much anymore as Faith likes to trap him in it! 

 

[wallfish 20,078]

My wife found these 2 little orange blobs. They look bigger in the pic but would fit into a shirt pocket. 

She nurtured them to health with feedings every 2 hours for about a week or 2. Lot of commitment to do that. They're now my daughter's cats and doing very well. They're very sociable to people as that's all they really know.

 

[wallfish 20,078]

And here's our little monster. He can eat up to 5 of the larger food cans a day

 

[ebinmaine 79,222]

We've caught all 3 kittens and the momma cat.   We've left a message for Friends of Feral Felines in Portland. Trina and I have been discussing getting barn cats for years. We'd be open to adopting them all if the situation is right. 

 

 

 

[kpinnc 18,558]

6 hours ago, ebinmaine said:

The momma cat is also captured.

 

How far is your nearest neighbor? 

[ebinmaine 79,222]

8 minutes ago, kpinnc said:

 

How far is your nearest neighbor? 

 

We have neighbors as close as 300 feet next door. A little further across the street. 

This is definitely not a docile domesticated creature. 

The momma cat has been hanging around mostly at the place across the street and up the mountain for several months or more. 

That neighbor has asked the others if it was theirs. None of the locals knew anything about her.  

 

 

[WHX?? 56,957]

1 hour ago, ebinmaine said:

open to adopting them

If you can tame them. I caught a wild one once and you didn't dare handle it without welding gloves on. Gave it to a coworker and somehow he domesticated it and said it was the best cat ever. Guess it can be done. 

[kpinnc 18,558]

20 minutes ago, ebinmaine said:

We have neighbors as close as 300 feet next door. A little further across the street. 

This is definitely not a docile domesticated creature. 

 

Oh I was just joking. My black cat is like a neighborhood cat. He eats and sleeps all over the place. 

[WHX?? 56,957]

12 hours ago, kpinnc said:

Our county has a feral program where they trap them, spay and neuter them,

Our county had a similar program where you could take your cat in and they would spay it for free or a very low cost.  I think they lost the vet that volunteered to do it. 

[ebinmaine 79,222]

5 minutes ago, WHX?? said:

domesticated it and said it was the best cat ever. Guess it can be done. 

 

Definitely can be... although that's not necessarily our aim. 

I've had feral cats here in the past that became quite tame over time. 

 

If these stay here we would certainly put some effort towards that, but if they stay wild that's OK too.