The Great Cat Catch and Release

It all started last spring. We get stray cats at our house from time to time. We’ll see them for a while and then they’ll disappear. Last spring, one of the cats had kittens in the garage. The kids thought they were so cute and really wanted us to take one in. (I resisted their pleas.) I noticed the momma cat around the house and she was down to skin and bones. My heart was moved towards her and I went and bought a bag of cat food. It took her a while to trust it enough to eat it, but once she started eating regularly, she soon looked much more healthy. She was still wild as could be. There would be mornings when she’d come looking for food and find the bowl empty. I’d go out and fill it up and she wouldn’t be back for hours. As time went on, if I’d forget, she'd sit at the door and meow. When I would go out to feed her, she’d run away and again wouldn’t come back to eat for hours. As the months went by, she became more relaxed around us and would only wait a few minutes after I filled the bowl before she ate. She eventually started hanging out by the food bowl relaxing. If people had come over, they’d have been sure we had a cat because she was always laying around somewhere. But, she was and is a wild cat.

Time went on and she had another crop of kittens. She continued eating from the food at the house and I waited for her to bring her kittens over. Never happened. So, I brought food out to the garage/barn and started feeding the kittens too. I realized that we had a lot of cats and needed to do something about it before we were overrun. There is an animal hospital near us that will spay/neuter feral cats for free. I made an appointment to bring the cats in. I used “live animal” traps which allow the cat to go inside to get the bait and closes behind them. I put one out and caught a kitten the first night I tried. I released the kitten into the bathroom and re-set the trap. I figured the bathroom was the best place for it to wait since there was nowhere for it to hide and I could easily re-capture it.  I caught another kitten and soon kittens were tearing around the bathroom going berserk. .

a note on the bathroom door hoping to prevent an accidental release

I thought there were four kittens and a mom and realized if I was going to get them all caught, I needed a different plan. I borrowed a cat carrier from a friend, shoved the kittens I’d already caught inside and tried again. Then, I caught a grown up cat, but not the one I was looking for! I think she was one of the first set of kittens, now grown up and a momma herself.  She was totally wild and she was occupying my trap. I needed to get her out so I could get back to trapping.

2 kittens caught

I looked around for the thick leather gloves we use for the wood stoves but couldn’t find them. I improvised with a pair of rubber garden gloves covered by oven mitts. The cat traps are so long, I had to lay on the ground and put my arm in up to the elbow in order to reach the cat. So, there I was laying on the bathroom floor trying to wrench the cat out of the trap who was spitting and hissing and biting at my gloved hands. Dode called and saved the day. He said Jared Dickson also had a live trap. Hooray! I could leave the momma cat in the trap and still keep trapping kittens, always hoping for the original momma. Elizabeth and I picked up Jared’s trap. On our way there, I told her I hated to be wasting time that we could be catching cats since we didn’t have a trap out. She told me she feels the same way when she’s fishing and she catches a fish or gets her line tangled. She hates to be missing out on the fish she could be catching. I got to worrying that if I caught the momma next, I’d be stuck again.  On our way back home, we bought another trap at the co-op in town.  We were soon back in cat catching business.

Elizabeth and I had a hard time getting homeschooling done. Every 30 minutes were were sneaking out to the garage to see if we’d caught anything. Once we caught 2 kittens at once and that was sure exciting for the kids. While Anastaya was carrying the trap back to the house, she was monkeying around with it and managed to open it. One of the kittens was soon racing across the driveway to safety. We went to bed that night with a total of 5 cats caught, the momma (the wrong one) and 4 kittens. Dode and I were laying in bed talking when we heard a lot of yowling. I thought it was the kittens in their carrier but it turns out we’d caught another one.  Jacob was carrying it over from the garage and the momma cat was following right behind at his heels. She was yowling, her kitten was yowling, Jacob was freaking out that he was going to get attacked. He set the trap down outside and came in to get me. The momma sat right down next to her kitten that was in the trap. I came down and brought the trap inside and she started pacing in front of the house. Jacob felt like a monster for taking the kitten away from the momma. He said he didn’t have the heart for any more cat catching. I looked at the momma and thought, “That does not look like the momma I’m looking for. We either have three momma cats or the other cat has sprung the trap.” When I checked I saw that she’d somehow gotten out.

I went back to bed and I was so mad I couldn't sleep. We should have had 7 cats captured but two had gotten away. And one of those was a momma cat who would soon have another set of kittens and we’d start all over. It wasn’t 10 minutes before Isaac came running in to say that they’d caught two kittens in one trap again. When we looked, we saw that we’d recaptured the momma and a kitten. The romantic whimsical part of me says that she knew all but one of her kittens was captured and she got out of the cage to go to it. Then, she sacrificed herself and her last kitten by entering the trap to be with the rest of her family. (She’s probably just a dumb cat though!) We left the traps out overnight still hoping for the momma that got us into this mess in the first place. In the morning, she was nowhere to be seen but we had caught an opossum!

I borrowed Dode’s truck because I didn’t want scared cats to pee on the van carpet. Elizabeth and I loaded up the cats and headed to the vet. All the way there, there was such a yowling of frightened kittens you wouldn’t believe! I felt like a big meanie and knew that the last 24 hours and the next 24 hours were going to be some of the worst of these cats lives. We got there and I pulled out my trap with two cats inside and my carrier with 5 cats inside. At the vet I was told, you need an individual carrier for eat animal. What?! After thinking about it, during which I worried, "what will I do, I can’t keep catching them each day", they decided to accept the cats and gave me until noon to return with the required carriers. I got home from the vet and got out my phone book to start calling everyone I knew who might have a carrier. Together with the traps at home, I had a total of 6 carriers.
 
Elizabeth and I headed back up with our carriers.  Elizabeth enjoyed drooling at all the cats who were available for adoption.  I don't think she considers the fact that we'd brought 7 cats in that morning to mean we have a cat as a pet.  Adult cats were free and she was pretty disappointed we didn't bring one home with us.
 
I think I spent about four hours between driving back and forth to the vet and doing what needed to be done at the vet.  We had to make our third and last trip when the cats were ready to come home.  When we got there, I saw a line of carriers stretching from one side of the waiting room to the other.  I counted, 1,2,3....7 and realized they were all mine!    The back of Dode's pick up was completely filled with carriers. 

We were under instruction to keep them in the carriers until morning.  Elizabeth's speech therapist knew someone looking for a barn cat so she said she'd come take one (I talked her into two!).  The kittens were not happy to be separated into different carriers.  Elizabeth was worried about them being outside in the cold so she put each carrier in the laundry room.  Once they woke up from the anesthesia, they started yowling and meowing.  It went on all night! 
 
I woke Elizabeth up early because she wanted to be there for the great cat release.  (I couldn't take the sad sounds coming out of the laundry room any longer.)  We brought the carriers outside and lined them up.  I counted to three and opened the trap of the momma cat.  She was crouched in the back and didn't want anything to do with leaving.  Then, I opened up the kitten carriers one by one.  They were also too scared to run out.  I tried tipping the kittens out of their carriers but their little claws were clenched tightly inside.  I had to reach inside and grab each kitten out.  When the first one ran away, the momma cat was quick to leave the safety of her cage and run after it.  The next released kitten high tailed it to the garage so the momma and her 1st kitten took off there.  The momma cat spent the next little while running back and forth in front of the garage to gather up her babies.  The little family huddled together and stared at us.  I had the feeling that momma cat knew she was missing a few babies (who were still tucked away in the laundry room).  She finally gave up and led her family into the safety of the garage.  We saw her leading her little family around later so apparently, all is well in the cat world.
 
Talk about two full days of cats!  And the best part?  I never caught the original momma cat who is probably pregnant so I'll have to catch her and her babies while trying to keep the cats already fixed out of the traps.  Each cat that went to the vet had the tip of their left ear cut off.  Apparently that is the universal sign that a feral cat has been fixed.  At least I won't keep bringing the same cats back to the vet!