TnR Win! Got Papa Torbie!

[BatCoach]

I’ve posted about the cat colony at my house that I have become the de-facto caretaker for. Its hard to believe that its almost been a year since we moved in and I noticed 2 very pregnant cats in our parking lot, and that if I didn’t do anything, we would have 2 litters of gutter kittens.

Sadly there are zero city or county resources for feral cats where I live. So after lots of unanswered emails for help, I finally found a rescue that was willing to help me with the colony and these 2 super pregnant feral mommas. I agreed to foster both moms and the rescue would teach me how to trap and would help adopt the babies out after they all got fixed, de wormed, vaccinated etc.

The momma kitties gave birth about 4 days after we trapped them. We set up cages in my garage to be a kitten maternity ward and began my foster journey.

Anyway, the kittens have all been adopted months ago, and I kept one of them. Life has returned to my normal number of cats (4) as opposed to 15 and I have been able to focus on TnRing the entire colony. Its hard since:

1. lack of resources - its just me with my one trap $35 amazon cheapo trap.
2. there is one voucher program where I can get 2 vouchers for a free spay/neuter per month,
3. the vet that takes the vouchers is like a walk-in free clinic for pets. They only take ferals on Mondays and Tuesday and I have to get in line at 7am and it takes about 1.5 hours for the check-in / intake process. I have to in in-office (which is 30 min drive away) at 8am, so I can only trap and bring in on a day that I am not at work.
4. Cat colonies are pretty loose. They come and go - once you think you have them all present and accounted for and TnRed- some new faces show up. I have a core 9 or 8 and a few fringe ones that I see less frequently.

The rescue sent their best trapper with all of her gear early on and she got 5 of them. Then we fixed the mamas as soon as the kittens were weaned. Since then, I have been trapping one at a time. I’m down to having a ‘hit list’ of just 3 now!! Sunday night I finally got my white whale. A HUGE Tom who is friendly, yet illusive and smart as hell.

He’s the top cat in this colony and everyone knows it. Heck, even the raccoons know it since he is the one who will tussle with them. He’s also very obviously my kitten’s dad - thus this monikier of “Torbie Papa”

He’s a gorgeous ticked tabby with a super thick coat. Just like someone else I know…

I would say Gemma is a pretty great mix of both parents - here is her mama (pre-trapping):

Now the whole family is fixed! As cute has is kittens are, Papa Torbie will sire no more babies. I still have 3 more to go - all are very black kitties who are quite good at hiding. My goal is to prevent ANY street kittens from being born this kitten season. Fingers crossed that my year-long offensive on feral kitteh reproduction will prove successful!

[SusanO]

Congratulations! You are the solution. So sorry there are so many problems and irresponsible people. Papa Torbie looks like Uggs who showed up here a few years ago. Same color. Except Uggs, despite his appearance, was very nonaggressive and probably had not fathered any kittens. He was young enough to not start spraying and got whisked off to the vet for a lower lobotomy pronto. Now he lies in wait for the can opener - his greatest love. Gets along with everybody else too. Papa may settle down too. You never know which ones will really mellow out…

[ravenclaw]

Awesome job!!!

Papa Torbie is very handsome. Good luck with the 3 black kitties but you have already done a lot to be proud of. If you hadn’t taken in the 2 litters of kittens last year, some of them would be making babies this year.

Do you still see Daisy and Marlowe? I hope they’re both around and doing well.

[Fiesta01]

Thank you so much for all you’re doing for these cats. Sending you a PM.

[Fiesta01]

Can’t see the PM in my out-box. Please let me know if you received it. If not, I’ll try again.

[BatCoach]

Thank you! Its so true. Whenever I get sad that we have so many street kitties I think about the fact that I saved 8 kittens from that fate, and their mamas will never have to be malnourished an pregnant ever again. Cats are such prolific breeders that if left unchecked, those kittens would 100% be having litters of their own this summer.

I see Daisy and Marlowe every day Daisy is still pretty friendly (for a feral) and I give her a special Sheba treat stick every day for being such a good girl. I can give her some light pets, but not too many before she backs off. She still very much wants to be an outdoor cat, as proven by when I tried to keep her in the garage during a rain storm and her subsequent panicking and howling. She’s happy being a feral gal on the town with me being her food lady.

Marlowe is doing well and is back with her older siamese-mix buddy. The older Siamese was already ear-tipped when we moved in and these two cats seem pretty well bonded.

[Alex_and_Bodie_s_Mom]

That’s awesome! And he’s SUCH a handsome boy - hopefully once he’s neutered, he will start to get a little friendlier. Mine did, to the point that he’s starting to think about moving into the house (did come inside a couple of weeks ago for a few minutes, in fact).

[Marla_100]

You should be so proud that you’ve selflessly helped so many dumped kitties have a better life without just being reproducing machines.
my hat is off to you!!

Curious if someone is still feeding the released cats or are they on their own now?

[BatCoach]

I feed them 2x a day and keep a water bowl outside my house. Sometimes my neighbors pitch in as well, so its nice that I don’t have to worry about them if I go out of town.

[shiloh]

Update?

[BatCoach]

He came out of surgery like a champ! The only hiccup was that due to a staff error, I had to sit in the waiting room for 1.5 hours when he was ready to go. Basically the vet is really understaffed and trying to train some new young techs who just dropped the ball. Oh well, beggars cant be choosers. Not many vets will handle ferals around here, so I will continue to use them.

Anyway, Papa Torbie has been returned to his harem and is doing well. Thanks to an incredible donation from a Cother (you all are seriously great!) I was able to order Revolution so I can give the more friendly kitties some flea control. Fleas are crazy here (never gets cold enough to kill them) and these guys are lousy with them. It was actually the biggest downside of fostering - I was constantly flea combing, and learning the hard way that Frontline and Advantage just don’t work on our super fleas.

[BatCoach]

Meet my “orange whale” this fluffy tailed orange Tom has been scrapping and fighting with the neutered males of the colony. I’ve made appointments and tried to trap him multiple times, but always came up empty.

The few clinics I can go to book out a month in advance, so I really didn’t want to come up empty handed and lose a $35 deposit for my appointment on 8/1.

This morning I was putting garnishes on my pies for the county fair and I heard shrieking cats. Sure enough, fluff tail Tom was bullying sweet gentle mouse ( neutered Russian blue some will recall from Nic’s thread) for Mouse’s breakfast.

I knew I had to take the chance to trap him even though I only had 40 mins to get my pies to the fair grounds for judging. Still in my PJs, I set up the trap, set it on our front walkway and tell Mr. Batcoach to open the window and listen for the trap to spring as I rushed to get dressed and finish pies.

Not 10 minutes later mr. Batcoach heard the trap, goes outside and the sound of him opening the front door startled floof tail to walk farther into the trap and trigger it!!! FINALLY success!

I get floof tail’s trap (who is understandably angry) safely in the spare bathroom since the garage is too hot, I finish getting ready, finish the pies and drive them to the fair grounds with 10 minutes to spare!

It was a wild morning

.

floof tail Tom giving the orange cat glare.

Slinking away as mouse and Terrance watch.

How the mighty have fallen. I normally never put food in the trap, but he’s going to be in there for almost 24 hours. I’ll pull it tonight so he can fast for surgery.

Gluten free strawberry rhubarb gallete and blueberry lemon pie with lavender shortbread crust.

[BrownDerby]

Oooh what a win. Good luck with those pies. That blueberry lemon is just torture.

Nic is chilling in front of his personal fan. He says one of his funny meowie vocalizations to Mouse and Terrance.

[rubygirl1968]

The pies look wonderful!!! Congratulations on fluffy tail. Hopefully he will calm down after neutering and live and let live with the others.

[BatCoach]

Love that handsome face. Mouse says hi with his signature squeak. He’s shy, gray and squeaky so he earned the name Mouse. I’ve never met a cat with less meow. He was the yin to Nic’s yang.

IMG_4576

[Peggy]

Good work! And good luck at the fair. I submitted photos but didn’t get anything in.

[Larksmom]

I found a cat at a Quik Trip once on Christmas Eve. She was emphatic that I pick her up and take her with me. She ended up living with my mom after that, as I already had several cats. This was before chipping. She was very quiet after that and she was also grey. We named her Mouse.

[SusanO]

Oh that is going to be a VERY pissed off orange hellion! Good job! He looks like a fox in the last picture you posted. Tell him he won’t miss them and the other cats will be cheering when he goes in for surgery.

[beowulf]

Wow! Those pies look delicious. Glad you got your orange whale. Will the next one be pink?? Brown??

[Alex_and_Bodie_s_Mom]

YAY! I got my feral tom trapped yesterday, too - did a major happy dance when that happened! (It was kind of funny; the trap is too big for me to be able to put the food all the way past the plate, but the cat he most picks on saw him mostly in the trap and just oh-so-barely brushed the latch and it slammed down. I really think Sweetums meant to do it.)