Saturday, April 29, 2017

Life Gets Strange

I returned to the Albany colony, where I trapped 16 last November, because more unfixed cats had shown up.   Both seen are teens, but then I saw the adult male too.  I caught one of the teens, obviously pregnant, afternoon before last.  Yesterday, I caught the second.

The 85 + year old woman had not yet talked to a neighbor, around whose place the cats hang out, so I did.   What is it these days, with neighbors all hostile and suspicious of each other, so they make up things in their minds about them, when they've never talked to them?

He seems like a nice enough guy and feeds the cats too and gave me the low down.   There is another adult female, who has probably had her kittens two days ago.  There's the adult male. And at least two other teens, the age of the two I had already caught, to catch.
Unfixed Long Hair black male

I take the teen I caught home, after going to feed the farm colony with her or him, still in the back of the car.  I put her or him into the same cage as the other one, thinking that will make both happier until they can be fixed.  I quickly realize my mistake when the cat starts into the carrier where his or her sister is, then quickly backs out.  She's having kittens.

I close the carrier door, so she and her first kitten, who is white, will be safe from the second cat, all scared from the new environment.  I don't want the newly trapped cat to rush into that carrier and mess up this natural process of birth taking place.   I pull the carrier out of that cage, my only big cage, and quickly set up my teeny one.  It won't even hold a litter box AND small carrier and the carrier was too small for comfortable birthing.

I put out an online plea for help.  My only other cage, of medium size, is being borrowed by the Shedd colony caretakers to house one of their boy cats who got injured, probably from surprising a nutria.

Chelsea, a Lebanon groomer, brings over one of her cages.  But its just as small as the one she's in.  So what do her and her friend do?  They drive all the way back to Lebanon to pick up her bigger cage, then bring it back here, arriving at about 11:30 p.m.  In the meantime, another Albany rescue woman, young and pregnant herself, brings me a can of KMR (Kitten Milk Replacement) just in case the teen mom won't feed her babies.

By this time, teen black mom has delivered two white kittens.  I think that's all there will be.  We transfer her to the larger cage, nice big carrier, nice cozy blanket in it, and then hand her the two white babies she's delivered.

I go to bed.  But this morning, there is at least one more kitten, this one black, but I think there are two more.  I'm leaving her alone, for the most part, but I did take a quick video.

Better they are born in the garage than under a trailer.

But still, its kind of a long responsibility on me, because most shelters or rescues are not going to foster a feral teen mom and her babes.

Got to roll with the punches, however.   And look on the bright side.

I also received a call from a N. Albany woman.  I got a mom and four or five teens fixed there last fall.  But there's a big tom with issues roaming and fighting there and she'd closed him under the house, she thought at 6:00 a.m. when she heard fighting and saw him peeking out from the crawlspace vent hole.

 I went over with a trap, but the close off where he can get in and out, wasn't completely closed off.  She's put a yard stool over on its side across the opening with a rock behind it to hold it there.   She did that immediately to the other opening too.   But there's space to get out on the side on each and he may have already exited.  If not, maybe he'll come out and into the trap and maybe he won't and maybe instead some big possum will.

I have a cinder block behind the trap whose door is almost but not quite flush against the house over the vent hole into the crawl space.  The trap is perpendicular to the side of the house. I blocked the spaces on the side too, where the door extends out and better blocked the second opening to the crawl space.   Now its a wait game there, to see if he's even under there or comes out into the trap.  

I've never seen him but I feel sorry for him.  He has no friends, only enemies, like most unfixed adult males.  Nobody wants him or likes him, because he fights and spray marks.  They claim the other tom they feed is fixed but he isn't.  They claim this male drove him away and I told them no, he's off looking for unfixed females.

I will need to find spay neuter reservations.  I tried calling the Salem clinic, and got no answer on Friday.  I left a message.  I have a message also in with Heartland's surgical staff, but so far have not heard back.  Crossing my fingers I can get some reservations somewhere soon.


5 comments:

  1. Good luck. I hope you do get the reservations.
    And, as always, thank you. On behalf of those who can't thank you, and even more on behalf of those who won't.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks EC. Thankfully KATA is taking the mom and kittens.

      Delete
  2. Bless you and these charges!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Life is never dull in the cat rescue business. You do remarkable work.

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