My TNR Journey Part 5

January 29, 2023

Pepper #11

Have we mentioned how many brown/gray tabby cats there are!!

We were sure it would be a quiet Monday morning at Critters because Sunday evening had gotten cold and rainy. We had our two trapped by 4PM and safely stowed in the horse trailer. We got to Critters at 4:01 AM and were handed number 15!!!!  Remember, the numbers are critical to getting on the list. Critters guarantees 20 cats per day and though they try their very best to get everyone in, there is a limit to what the vets can do.

Smoggy #12

If you don’t give them a name Critters will assign one….and they can be pretty funny!

So, we are number 15, the list goes up at 6:00 AM and folks start signing up. If a lot of people have two cats then we are not assured of getting in that day. When I sign our name I can see that there are already 26 cats on the list. Now we wait until 7:00 AM to see if our cats can get done today. At the end of the sign up, I counted 36 cat traps sitting on the patio. Some are going to be disappointed.

Intake starts about 7:15 AM, and we breathe a sigh of relief…they are taking our two cats. This makes a total of 12 for us, six males and six females. We are down to the last six or seven and may have to change how we approach the trapping. 

Steps for participating in the TNR program at Critters without Litters:

Trap a cat or two-Critters will take two cats per address.

Bring your ID on your first trip so your address can be verified. Critters bills the city or county depending on your address.

Get there early-Monday thru Thursday. If you want a guaranteed spot, between 3:30 and 4:00 AM.

A fellow trapper will be on hand to give you a number. Make sure you get a number!

Critters will post a list a few minutes before 6:00 AM. The trappers will have lined up in their number order to sign up on the list.

If you are amongst the first 20 cats, you are golden. If you are on the list at all, your chances of getting in are good. If you are on the standby list, it can go either way.

Put your cats (in their traps) on the patio. At 7:00 AM intake will start after pickups are handled. Your name will be called from the list. Hand over the paperwork you did ahead of time (the forms are on the patio-bring a pen), and the wonderful staff member will tell you to pick up your cat the following morning at 7:00 AM. You are done! Go home and take a nap.

My TNR Journey Part 4

January 25, 2023

We are feeling like pretty good trappers! We got three this time! The property owner agreed to go to Critters with us so that we could get the third one in. We are still setting our four traps, knowing we will probably have to let one or two of the youngsters back out. But we got three that needed to be done, yay!

Oreo

This guy was aged at 10 years old! He had a pretty damaged left ear, and you can see the tip on the right ear.

Hanging out in a cold, dark parking lot with a bunch of like minded people can be a lot of fun. Everyone has their own situation and story. We all cheer with them when they trap that one savvy female cat that has eluded them through three or four litters of kittens. And when someone says, “I think I got the last one” someone else will say “Is there ever a last one?”, and we all laugh. 

This TNR business in our community is still a tough deal. Though the trappers become a tight knit group, it would be so much nicer if we could bring our cats in when it’s light outside, and not have to worry that even though we got there at 4:00 AM we may not get on the list. Pet overpopulation is not a high priority here….is it anywhere? And we all know money is tight and there are many needs, so we carry on trying to do the right thing as best we can.

So three and a half weeks in, we have gotten ten cats fixed…five males and five females. That equates to hundreds of kittens not being born into a feral life. And we’re feeling pretty good about that!

Sparky 2.0

The tipping of the ear is very important! There are probably seven cats that look a lot like Sparky here.

My TNR Journey Part 3

January 22,2023

We learn as we go on this whole trapping thing.  Should we feed the cats in the traps so they don’t fear going into them? Are they then so unafraid that they keep going into the set traps even after they have had their surgery? Like the little orange cat we call Nehi….he has been trapped five times now! He thinks the eating is pretty good, and then he gets turned loose!! He’s very cute, but alas, not very sweet.

This evening we have two, one male and one female. Two is our target number, and this will bring our total done to seven. We have accomplished this in two and a half weeks. According to the property owner, the total in the colony is nineteen. That means there are some cats we have never seen. The property is very big, with lots of sheds and coops around. We feel we may need to expand our trapping area to get those cats that don’t hang out in the front area.

We’ll experiment with traps in different places and see what happens. At any rate, we feel good about curbing the cat population in the pasture! 

My TNR Journey - Part 2

January 19, 2023

My wonderful husband has joined in this adventure, which makes that 3:00 AM wake up call a little easier to take. On Wednesday evening we decided to set up 3 traps in hopes of getting the pregnant Calico. If we got 3 cats in traps and one of them was her, we could release one of the other cats and get it another day. We used the last of the chicken stew which has proven to be pretty well received. A little tabby that was already fixed decided he needed some more and got himself caught…oh well! The Calico could not be tempted, but we got two in the traps within 10 minutes. Off to the horse trailer, covered them with a towel and waited for morning

Critters tips the right ear for us, so we know who’s been fixed.

Thursday morning was drop off day, and Friday will be pick up day. We discussed using all of our 4 traps to speed up this task. We would need another person with us, with another address in order to do that. But we decided against that plan. Two cats per address, per day is fair. Taking up 4 spaces on a list of 20 seems greedy. We are all in this together trying to help, and we need to share the resources we have available.

If we are able to TNR 3 or 4 cats each week, we will accomplish our mission in a couple of months. We know, of course, that there will  be newbies showing up, so vigilance will be required!

A Journey into TNR-Part 1

January 12, 2023

I live in a fairly rural area. There are goats, sheep, chickens, horses and lots of cats. Most noticeably, a pasture across the street from us always seemed to have a boat load of cats living there. The lady that lived there fed the cats for years and never fixed any of them. The cats did what cats do, and over the years the cat population would rise and fall. We spoke to the lady with the cats about spay/neuter but she was unwilling to take on the task, and then she stopped feeding the cats! My husband and I live by the rule, if you feed them you must fix them. I wanted to feed them, so fixing them became the goal.

I have never trapped very much. My husband had a lot of experience but it had been years ago. We still had his very good, sturdy trap and the second week of January we set that trap up near the cats in the pasture on a Wednesday evening. (We had the lady’s heartfelt permission to do this). We are fortunate the colony we are working on is across the street. We could set that trap, sit in our yard and see when one of the little souls wandered in. The first one took about 5 minutes! Carried that trap to our enclosed horse trailer, covered the trap with a towel and let him spend the night there. Now for the fun part….

Bakersfield is very fortunate to have a low cost spay/neuter clinic in town. With an appointment for a companion cat a spay is only $65.00 at this writing, which is a really good price. But, they also have a Community Cat Program that is supported by the city and the county. Monday through Thursday Critters without Litters (a 501 non-profit), will fix 20 cats at no cost. Demand is high, so this is where the fun part comes in. In order to get on that list of 20 cats a trapper needs to arrive VERY early in the morning. We are talking 4:00 AM - 4:30 AM. If someone has an especially difficult case and they don’t want to risk missing out on the list, they may arrive at 2:30 AM! When you arrive one of the other trappers will greet you and offer you a number. This is key! That number is your place in line for signing up on the list which is not posted until 6:00AM. And don’t fall asleep in your car and miss the list being put up!! If 20 cats are listed when you get there you have no guarantee you will get your cat in that day. Again, we are lucky to have this service but we all ask, why should it be this hard to do a good thing for the community? 

Anyway, Thursday morning (4:00AM) I arrived at Critters with my one feral cat, got on the list, and little Sparky was taken in to be neutered at 7:15AM. It was a long morning. The cats have the surgery, a flea treatment, a couple of vaccines and get their ear tipped-for free! The cats are kept overnight so that they can be released right away. We pick them up the following morning at 7:00AM and off we go. It is a wonderful service and we appreciate them so much. But to get up that early, we need to trap more cats at a time! Critters will do two cats per address, so we got another trap!

January 16, 2023

With two traps in hand, we set them up on Sunday evening in a pretty light rain, hoping the cats would go for our chicken and rice stew. They did! We got a young boy first, and the second trap was sprung a couple minutes after by an older female. It feels so good getting a girl cat done when you’re on a TNR mission. Keeping more kittens from being born is the bottom line. Off we went to Critters on Monday morning. It was quiet that morning so getting on the list was easy, but we still were there at 4:00. The cats were taken to surgery and picked up Tuesday morning to be released back to the pasture. We estimate 16 or so cats, so 13 (at least) to get done. The mission is going well, we will keep after it…..we borrowed two more traps!

Sir Winston Could Use Your Help

Maintaining a quality of life for all our rescues is of utmost importance. When Sir Winston lost his balance and had trouble seeing last month he was immediately seen by our local veterinarian. He was put on ear drops with little improvement, so it was recommended we take him to a specialist at Access Vet Urgent Care in Woodland Hills.

A huge polyp was found deep under the eardrum which could ultimately result in blindness if left untreated. Major surgery was done and the specialist has hopes for a full recovery given his young age and otherwise healthy condition.

Although on the quiet side, one year old Sir Winston loved playing with the kittens, cat treats and cuddling on laps. After surgery he now requires strong medication and a quiet environment for up to four weeks. We will ensure, however, he gets lots of attention in his temporary suite in the upstairs vetting room.

Sir Winston thanks you!

To help with emergency surgery expenses, we have set up a Sir Winston Emergency Fund and we are asking for your help. Any amount will help and donations can be sent by check or online through our website or through Facebook. This special young cat, like all the deserves a future loving home and we appreciate all the help you can give. We will keep you posted!