A couple of weeks ago I was walking past the woodshed and heard the unmistakable squeaking of new kittens. There had been no stray cats around, so that was rather peculiar.
When I went inside the shed, the little cat above hissed and spat at me and ran away. I could still hear kittens, even louder. My formerly neat woodshed is a mess, a whole row of wood fell over a while back and I haven't gotten around to restacking it. I went to the corn stand and borrowed Brian. He's young and bendable and used to work for a veterinarian; he climbed back into the mess and found the babies. There were 5 of them, they didn't look more than 2 or 3 days old. We left them alone and closed the door.
The next morning I took some food out for the mama cat, but she had moved the babies out of the wood shed. That wasn't a good thing. There are too many hiding places around here that aren't safe for babies. Like stacks of pallets and boxes.
I told everyone at the corn stand to watch for the new family. Especially the fork lift drivers. Then last weekend there was the really noisy Corn Festival, with thousands of people traipsing around. Mama wisely moved her babies back into my relatively peaceful woodshed.
The babies are running around there. I put food out every morning. I warn the mama when I get to the door and by the time I open it, all I can see is various-colored little tails disappearing into the wood stack. Mama doesn't run from me anymore, but she still hisses and spits. She's very small, barely past kittenhood herself. She's a ratty little thing, I don't know how she managed to look so good in the picture I took.
I'm really tickled to have some feral cats around. Hopefully they'll stay off the highway and camp out in the woodshed and the yard. The rodent population has been overwhelming this year. It could be interesting trying to catch all these kitties to get them spayed and neutered. But I'll try.
7 comments:
Do you know anyone with a live trap?
Would the local cat rescue give you a hand?
Jane x
Feral cats are a HUGE problem in Australia. They are wiping out the native wildlife as they breed and spread through the countryside. They are often very much bigger than domestic cats too. There have been occasions when the army have been used to try to bring numbers down by shooting them.
Jane, I have a trap. If you saw it, you'd say "You'll never catch a CAT in that!" But I do, almost every time. It's a wire chicken cage with a door that swings in and up. I run a string from the catch on the cage door, up a tree, and into my dining room window. I put feed in it for a week. At first the kitties don't want to go in the cage to eat, but they give in and do it. Once I caught a feral mom and all her babies at the same time. We kept the babies in a large pen and tamed them and wormed them and found them homes.
Helsie, I'm sure feral cats are a problem in places here, too. The cats that end up here have usually been dumped by idiots from town. They're not really wild and they don't cope well with owls and coyotes.
One year I had a lot of garter snakes move into the chicken yard and they kept the mouse population under control. I haven't seen any recently.
You pretend you're as hard as nails but you are just a big softee!
YP, it takes one to know one.
We had a terrible feral cat problem. I caught 8 in one week. Then, a mama was nursing 7 kittens. She ran away. I called the police who called backup who called the shelter. Shelter woman took all the kittens. I set the trap. Soon, shelter woman returned with one kitten. We sat here until Mama was in the trap. When we put the kitten by the trap, it tried to climb to Mama. Mama came over and sniffed kitten. It was settled. I caught the right Mama. Eight cats in one fell swoop.
The previous winter, I tried to rescue a kitten that was freezing in front of my eyes. It had ice in its fur and swayed when it tried to get up and walk. It got away and froze beneath my porch because I never saw the little calico running wild. These are not dropped off. They are truely feral, living and breeding mostly by the train track, under the bridge.
I so understand. Nothing better than a cat for mice, or a snake! I've had both...and can't decide which works better...hum I think cat...the snake can only eat one at a time cats take on many.
Linda
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e and then isn't hungry forever.
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