Three More Fixed Yesterday and More Drama

 I got three cancellation spots yesterday in Salem.

I thought it would be easy to trap three of five kittens born to an abandoned mom cat, at a Lebanon complex.  Got mom cat fixed the 7th.  Two mom cats from there in fact.

Well I went over late afternoon, but the kittens refused to come out from where they were napping in the sun, in the yard behind the complex.  Fence inbetween, the back of the complex, a long drainage culvert and the neighboring house's shed they live under and around.  Here's a rather lousy video taken through the fence of a couple of the kittens napping.

I'd set up the drop trap, but there was nowhere out of sight to sit to pull the cord, to drop it, should they go under for food.   There was a yellow jacket nest in the ground just off the parking lot which also didn't help matters.  I finally dropped the drop trap plan and set a live trap at the back fence.   Still no takers.

I realized I might have to find alternate cats.  I'm not maintaining much of a list currently because I get so few spots.

But I decided to take the drop trap over to the other Lebanon complex, where there's a prolific young mom, on her second litter this summer.  Second litter now four weeks of age.  But its really tough to trap there, with people coming and going, basically a parking lot to set up the trap in, other cats, cars coming and going.   But I tried.

 She'd get interested, then a car would pull up or someone would come out, or another cat would come up she didn't like.  An owned cat I call Fat Ass, cause there's not a morsel of food he'd ever pass up, ate under the drop trap three times, average time under it eating--20 minutes.   What a pain.

The lady who feeds came out and suddenly announces there's another unfixed female, with a couple kittens, that she feeds out back or inside her apartment.  Well go get her in a carrier, I tell her.  She walks out around the side with the carrier and the cat bolts out the insecured front.  Great.

A skrawny unfixed gray tabby male shows up, seems like he's after the mom cat.  Is she in heat again?  I decide, when he slinks under the drop trap, desperate for food, to get him and did.   But he's the only one I caught there.   The other apartment folks finally said one of the five kittens was caught. 

Ricky shows up

Ricky is very hungry

Kitten Julia was fixed yesterday

So was Ricky, although he needs some mouth work.

The lady on other side of the street, who volunteers for another group, and also adopts out herself sometimes, had a kitten needing fixed from another neglected female she'd been caring for, when someone left her there.  I'd taken her to be fixed already too.  But I took the kitten, Julia.  She'd tried calling a friend, who had two cats from their daughter.  This woman had helped them find homes for the kittens from their first litters.  They'd then promised to get them fixed.  Turns out they didn't and one of them had just had NINE more kittens and the other one was about to pop with probably half dozen more.  Can you believe that?

With Julia, one of Helena's kittens, Ricky the skinny stray, and Trapper, the black tux kitten from the other complex, I had three and came home.

Trapper, the female kitten from the other complex.  Four more siblings to catch there somehow.

The two girl kittens and Ricky the boy were fixed yesterday.  But.....Ricky has dental issues, the clinic told me, like wtf, now I have to find somewhere he can get a dental?   And hold him in the meantime?   Shoot.  But that's what I'll do.   

I immediately tried a Salem clinic but they are booked out to late October.   I then called the affordable clinic on the coast, and they said someone would call me back about squeezing him in.  So far, no call but they're a busy clinic.   Hoping he can get in fast.