Idiot Bleeding Hearts

[Andara Bledin]

Well, our middle cat was a rescue from our work. He was about 3 weeks old when we got him, and we had to bottle feed him for several weeks before we could wean him. He's now 4 1/2 years old and a gorgeous siamese with snowshoe markings.

He currently harrasses our youngest cat, who was one of the 4 rescuees we picked up a year and a half ago. The other three were found loving homes and he's quite the healthy, happy kitty, but for his run ins with our middle boy.

We managed to catch and get fixed two of our active breeders, but the one that we're fairly certain is the mother to our middle cat and of the current litter is a wily queen, and she's eluded us for a while. We're hoping that with the help of the neighbors we can finally catch her, as well as her latest batch of kittens. From what I understand, they've actually had a couple of the local breeders fixed, themselves, but were unaware of the Humane Society clinic's program, so they've been spending way more than necessary for their work.

Two years back, we had three litters that we know of. Managed to catch and redistribute all three. Last summer, there was only one litter, and we didn't quite see it ourselves. Turns out we'd managed to load up the box they were in with a shipment of goods we were delivering to a customer and he got a bit of a surprise as he was inspecting his parts. So, he got a surprise delivery of kittens. Luckily, he's as much cat people as we tend to be, so he accepted the responsibility of taking care of their needs himself and we didn't have to send our driver back out to retrieve them.

^-.-^

[BeenThereDoneThat]

I'm glad the little kitten is going to be taken care of and loved...hopefully she will forget all about the horrible start to her life. Good luck with working out the issues with the other company, Andara.

[Seshat]

Turns out we'd managed to load up the box they were in with a shipment of goods we were delivering to a customer and he got a bit of a surprise as he was inspecting his parts. So, he got a surprise delivery of kittens.

SURPRISE!!!

Heh. A delivery I'd love .. for about a week. But I can't reasonably care for more animals than we have. (Actually, we can't fully care for what we have, but we're letting time take its course. Bring us down to 1 animal, unless our finances improve and look to stay improved.)

But if I could get funding to foster the kittens to forever-home age? YEAH!

[PepperElf]

at one of my shore commands we had feral cats living around the building.

one of the maintenance civilians was taking care of them I think, at least feeding them... and the population didn't seem to be rather large so they may have done some neutering.

The downside was that the bushes reeked of cat piss.

[Seshat]

The right mulch will take care of that smell - and the combination of the nitrogen and carbon (from the mulch) will fertilise the soil beautifully.

[ShadowBall]

My old neighborhood was (and still is) overrun with ferals. It's because of a couple people who have cats and were too cheap to have them altered, so they reproduced rapidly and basically if you wanted a pet, you could just grab a stray off the street since the "owners" would be none the wiser.

My family took in several litters, found the kittens homes, and had the mothers spayed afterward. In fact, my two sibling cats were from a stray queen's litter. And at one point, the town council said there were too many complaints about the cats in that neighborhood, so it was time to set down traps, haul them off to the shelter and fix them. Suddenly, people who gave not a single damn about those cats before came out in full force with, "Durr hurr, dem's mah cats!" and would wrench the traps open, set the cats free, and leave the mangled traps behind. So that plan didn't work too well.

I know it's tempting to feed feral kitties - hell, I did that when a stray walked into the backyard a few years ago and I ended up keeping the little bastard. But feeding them will do little more than encourage them to hang around, mark everything and have countless litters. I wish people would understand this.

[Andara Bledin]

As mentioned before, feeding them only encourages them to hang around a particular spot more. They were already there to begin with. Our workplace has never done it because we don't want cats gathering around our stuff - it's really not safe for them, as demonstrated - and they have plenty of other food options in the area. None of the queens we've had fixed have been even remotely thin. They're not fat, but they're certainly not going hungry, either.

Thankfully, since we had two of the three we know about fixed, there's been less roaming, and fewer visits by the local toms, which means less territorial marking.

If you have bushes you don't want used for a litterbox, I understand that planting garlic will keep the cats away; they hate it.

^-.-^

[Geek King]

If you have bushes you don't want used for a litterbox, I understand that planting garlic will keep the cats away; they hate it.

^-.-^

Also orange peels, or other high-citrus fruit peels work for most cats.

[Seshat]

An unneutered feral population will stabilise itself at the population best suited to its food supply.

A neutered feral population with neighbouring unneutered feral populations will stabilise at about the same point (with the children of the unneutered neighbours arriving - so you'll want to neuter those).

An neutered 'island' feral population (no neighbouring unneutered roaming queens) will stabilise at its current population, whatever that is.

With unneutered roaming pet queens, its possible a queen will have a litter and hide them from its owner, and the litter will become feral, thus increasing an otherwise 'island' feral population. Otherwise, a neutered island feral population will be stable.

So the ideal, of course, is for as many people as possible to TNR (trap, neuter, release) their feral populations; thus creating a neutered feral population. If all their neighbouring feral populations are also TNR-neutered, the central one becomes an 'island' population.
As more and more people TNR, you get larger and larger 'islands', which eventually merge.

Naturally, large areas that can't be easily TNRd (such as national forests and the like) can form fringes to the neutered islands - but if the urban areas are neutered island populations of ferals, the SPCAs and the forestry management organisations can focus on team efforts to TNR the neighbouring forest areas; and actually achieve something.

We may never be able to fully eradicate feral exotics (which in Australia means most placental mammals, among others); but with enough groups doing TNR or similarly helpful programs, we can make the problem manageable.

[Andara Bledin]

Now if only we could get community governments to stop trying to punish people for running TNR in their neighborhoods. >_<

^-.-^

[LadyAndreca]

There's a lady in the next town over that runs a non-profit just for this reason. She has her entire garage dedicated to providing a safe place for queens to litter. When one does, she just lowers the door and whisks the queen away to be spayed, and takes the kittens in. The ones that can be re-homed, she adopts out herself, or sends them to the SPCA when they're old enough to be adopted out through them. The ones that can't be rehomed because of sickness or injury, or take badly to humans, she takes care of herself. She actively encourages people to bring found litters to her, and the queen if they can get her. Her website has an entire section dedicated to trapping advice and how to safely move a young litter to her.

I got my beautiful kitties from her. Originally I wanted another pair, but when a tiny kitten chooses you by climbing up a couch and attacking your braid, while her brother wrestles your husband's shoelaces, you can't help but fall in love with them.

[Seshat]

She has her entire garage dedicated to providing a safe place for queens to litter. When one does, she just lowers the door and whisks the queen away to be spayed, and takes the kittens in.

<snippage>

I got my beautiful kitties from her. Originally I wanted another pair, but when a tiny kitten chooses you by climbing up a couch and attacking your braid, while her brother wrestles your husband's shoelaces, you can't help but fall in love with them.

She sounds like a wonderful woman. And yeah, I can understand the kittens choosing you.

[PepperElf]

The right mulch will take care of that smell - and the combination of the nitrogen and carbon (from the mulch) will fertilise the soil beautifully.

I don't know if they knew that... and even if they did, I know my command. They'd have never forked up money for that. Hell they didn't even pay their own cell bill (seriously the official duty phone got shut off for non-payment).


more likely if anyone had suggested they put money into it they'd have told the guy to stop feeding the cats instead