STARTING WITH A COLONY

January 9, 2003

Please let us know if there was anyone at the meeting tonight!

1) FINDING RESCUE GROUPS IN YOUR AREA

Go to "LINKS" (formerly called Bookmarks),
Bookmarks > ASSISTANCE: Finding local rescue groups

Feline Rescue Net
http://felinerescue.net

Love That Cat
http://www.lovethatcat.com

Pets 911
http://www.1888pets911.org

World Animal Net
http://worldanimal.net/wan.htm

You can go to one of these sites, put in AUSTIN, TEXAS, and see what they have listed.

MOST feral cat groups (including the little one I'm in) are totally overwhelmed most of the time, and can be hard to reach. One way to reach them is to **go to their adoption sites** (their phone message may tell you where this is, or you could call local pet stores like PETCO and say, do you have rescue groups showing cats for adoption?).

2) COLONY TRIAGE -- WHO TO GET OUT OF THERE FIRST

OK, so about 8 cats, with one older kitten who has meowed at you and flirted. THIS one needs to get got, first, as she's too friendly to stay in a colony!

Start a log of who you see there.

3) CONTACTING LAND OWNERS, BUSINESSES

So they're on "No trespassing" lot for sale.

I'd wait til you have some contact with rescue group, or have found traps some other way, then contact the business owners.

What you want to tell the fast food places is, PLEASE DON'T FEED, I'M FEEDING NOW AND WILL BE TNR-ing. Make sure you tell them you're not going to trap-kill.

See in FILES, there's stuff on "talking TNR with skeptical people", and www.alleycat.org Alley Cat Allies has bunches of info on this, including several videos targeting businesses.

4) FEEDING -- FEEDING STATION

--Feed during day, so don't attract wildlife
--Water can be nearby

--Ideally, you build a nice-looking, 2-entrance feeding station
We've got stuff in FILES, and Susan Greene has stuff on her excellent site
https://www.angelfire.com/ny5/wildrun/infosharing.html

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/feral_cats/files/Do-it-yourself%20bldg%20projects/trapbox.jpg
has a picture of a trapbox, showing how it can look very neat

*********************
I like making a feeding station from plywood --
curved-cut entrances (always have 2 so cats don't get cornered)
roof is a rectangle, attached by hinges to tall side of it
roof angles down, overlaps wall
Floor has vinyl floor covering tacked to it
Under floor, have some sturdy pieces of wood to raise off the ground
Have "trunk handles" on each of the short sides of it

     /|
    / |
   /  |
  /   |
 /    |
 |    |
 | X  |

This is showing the roof much too steep! X is one opening. Make it cat sized, not too big.
If you don't have tools, lumberyard will cut the pieces for you (make a chart first -- can do this all with one sheet plywood).

Then you paint it a neutral color.
***********************

You CAN feed w/o making a feeding station, but often feeding stations are more acceptable to the people around the colony.

Make sure you pick up ALL trash, including all the stuff that's not from your feeding! Want it to look better than before you started.

5) TRAPS, CAGES

-- See if can borrow traps from local rescues. If you're going to be Doing This, easier to buy traps if you can, see:

Tomahawk	www.livetrap.com
ACES	www.animal-care.com
Tru-Catch	http://www.animal-traps.com/
Tru-Catch lightweight trap	http://www.animal-traps.com/light.htm
Safeguard	at ACES

I've mostly used Tomahawk and Tru-Catch. Tru-Catch are very sturdy, also heavy; if turn over, they open (this is to make it easier to release wildlife if trapped by mistake). You can search archived messages for trap comparisons. Safeguard traps are great, too!

CAGES and CONDOS:
Best mailorder source I've found is www.revivalanimal.com, for cages.

See: Files > 02) ABOUT TRAPPING -- AND RECOVERING
for some "planning trap/recover" stuff

Unless they will recover from surgery, at the vet's, for several days (I do minimum 3 days males, a week for females), you'll need one or more recovery cages. We use 2x2x3 cages, see FILES for set up. Cheapest place to buy is www.revivalanimal.com

You trap them as many as you can vet/recover at the same time! Talk w/vet ahead of time (see if local rescues can refer to a low cost/no cost s/n vet). See "INSTRUCTION SHEET FOR VETS FOR DEALING WITH HARD STRAYS" in FILES, about trapping and recovering.

6) TESTING

Personally, I would test for FeLV definitely, and I do the combo test (FeLV/FIV). If a hard stray tests FeLV+, I euthanize. (There are some false positive results; ideally would hold and retest, but I believe if you hold a cat out of a colony, for more than say 2 weeks, you really then need to keep that cat and finish taming it).

Kittens, I will hold and retest, even if hard stray (I'll be taming them)(Then of course you may be in a position of finding home for FeLV+ kitten, though many are not persistently positive).

If hard stray fighting tomcat tests FIV+, I euthanize (will tend to continue fighting behavior, FIV is spread by blood). If meek female tests FIV+, I would tend to TNR her, since she will probably NOT be a FIV-spreading risk to other cats.

Incidence of FeLV and FIV has been high, in this area, in colony cats (we're in greater San Francisco bay area, Oakland, Hayward area).

7) ASSESSING, QUARANTINE, TAMING

Standard quarantine is 2 weeks. Make sure your cats are current on their vacs (FVRCP, FeLV, rabies).

Have vet give vacs per the "new" protocols, FeLV in left rear leg, rabies in right rear leg. Revival Animal Health sells new non-adjuvanted vaccines which are hopefully less of a risk for vaccine associated sarcomas (1 in 10,000 risk)(my eldest cat lost his leg due to VAS; but he's the only cat out of hundreds and hundreds, who we've vaccinated, who got this). The best rabies vac is Purevax by Merial.

ANY cat you TNR, or you take inside to tame, must have the rabies vaccination, whether or not you're in a rabies-high-risk area. This protects the cat from PEOPLE (say the cat bites someone while you're taming it).

> How do I decide if a particular cat is tamable, and therefore foster
> it until I can find it a good home That's the billions and billions of dollar question!

I've got lots of info/milestones in FILES, 04) About Taming.

Also FILES, 01) About starting rescue, 1) How to start rescue, spectrum of socialization.

8) BOOKS, INFO

Files > 01) ABOUT STARTING RESCUE * * * * > BOOKS on TNR, feral cats
You can download for free the HSUS Community Approaches to Feral Cats.

You can get a LOT of info free from Alley Cat Allies,
www.alleycat.org

See LINKS, for links to other feral cat websites.

(and I've pretty much written a book in our FILES).

Time/money is very variable. It's an advantage that you homeschool! Cats tame partly just by being in a taming cage, with people doing stuff around them.

This is excellent for a 7 year old to learn. She's old enough to grasp the idea of The Cat Nation vs The Individual Cat (sometimes, to have end result of fewer cat deaths, you must kill some cats; e.g. you euthanize FeLV+ hard strays so they don't spread the disease further).

Where are the ferals you have tamed? (By calling them hard strays, I'm not saying they're any less ballistic, I'm EXPANDING the definition to include "true ferals", cats we rarely deal with, even very experienced rescuers).

Tell us more!

Gesine Lohr
GesineLohr@excite.com
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/feral_cats

Copyright © 2003 Gesine Lohr

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