I’ve always loved orange cats. The tame ones seem to be such lovers and are very easy to adopt out.
Steve is a feral. He’s seemed to have adjusted to the no balls thing quite nicely, but I saw him run my neighbor’s cat (fixed by me) off tonight. He didn’t run the tortiseshell off. I’m not sure if its because he still remembers that he likes the ladies or because she was so sneaky.
Anyhow, I got to sing my theme song tonight. I’ve got her, she seems to be a housecat and she will go to the vet tomorrow.
I’m going to be moving my trap about a mile down the road tomorrow. There is someone who will let me set it up in his yard and seems to be willing to actually listen to me when I tell him to NOT feed the cats when I’m trying to trap. One of the biggest problems I have when trapping is that the kind hearted people who are feeding the strays won’t stop feeding them. I know that they feed them out of love, but I do need hungry cats who are willing to go into a strange metal thing for food.
I can’t save the world. I’m doing my best to clean up my community. I need some cooperation, people!!!
flatlined, (1) could you boil down your Science Diet lecture for us, or do you have a link to a thread? (2) What does the ear-snip look like? (3) have you taken any pictures of Steve that you could post?
Thanks.
Last night, I wrote a long thoughtful reply, but the internets ate it and I got ticked off and went to play with foster kittens.
Here are the cliffnotes. Cats are obligate carnivores. In a perfect world, they would live by eating mice and other small rodents/lizards/birds. They would get a small amount of carbs from the stomach contents of their prey, but that is all. They also get most of their water from their prey.
Cats who eat kibble have to drink water. Even the best kibble has at least 40% grain to hold its shape and not spoil. So, now I’m going to say that to keep cats from going into kidney failure, they should be fed canned food (I mix warmed water with the canned to add extra fluid and to make the canned smell better, but I’m also gone 12 hours a day, so they do get kibble. They also have several fountains)
If you read the ingredient list for Science Diet, you will see that there are no named meats involved. Its made up of meat byproducts (which can be such things as feathers and blood), grain, water and chemicals. IMO, one can get a better food for the same money by reading the labels and finding one that has named meats in the first 3 words. IMO, Science Diet is overpriced crap. Most vets don’t research food, so recommand Science Diet because its what they learned in vet school.
The ear tipping done properly is about 1/3 to 1/2 of the top of the ear cut off with a straight cut. I’ll try to find pics to post, but I don’t want to do it in this post. The internets hate me right now and I hate them back.
I don’t have pics of Steve. I used to take them before the cat went to the vet, and would then cry my eyes out if said cat ended up getting euthed. I guess I just got out of the habit. I do have pics of cats and kittens I rescued years ago, and I’ll share the ones of the best cat in the world in my next post. If people here want me to start taking pics again, I will. But…only after they survive their bloodwork.
This cat wasn’t happy. I had him fixed and shaved and eartipped. He took the time to say bad words when he was released, and he only about a 1/8 inch of his ear cut off. http://www.boomspeed.com/desertrat/uglyboy.JPG
After a while, we came to a compromise and he moved in and became a house cat. As you can see, the eartipping isn’t visible because of his furry ears. This is why I remind my totally awesome vet to cut the ear very short. http://www.boomspeed.com/desertrat/TBlanche090303.JPG
I lost him to liver disease several years ago. I still miss that big boy. And sorry for the links, I still haven’t managed how to figure out how to rename them.
Do you have a recommendation for something OTHER than SD for a cat prone to urine crystals. My big boy has been on the prescription SD for that for years now. I’d LIKE to put him on something with less grain and more meat, but I don’t want him to get blood in his urine again. It makes him hurt.
Link Creation
What you want to do is type the word you want to turn into a link, such as your cat’s name. Then you highlight the word (or phrase) and click on the icon that shows a globe with a chain link on it. The popup lets you enter the URL (I usually have it on the clipboard so I can paste it). Click OK, and the board software takes care of the rest.
ETA: Wouldn’t cutting the ear really short affect their hunting ability?
flatlined, thank you for the info and the pictures! It’s hard to imagine both those pictures are of the same cat!
We have an un-neutered semi-feral cat in the neighborhood. After reading about your experiences, I want to try TTNR for the boy.
ahha. it has something to do with my firewalls. Thank you so much for explaining it.
I’m not really a food expert, I do know that SeaDragon could give you better advice about your big boy. I was complaining about feeding cats Science Diet for general health, not for real problems. Poor boy, crystals hurt a lot.
My Totally Awesome Vet now recommends Royal Canin for those sort of problems. I think the ingredients are better. I would suggest that you do anything you can to increase his water intake, and use bottled water unless your tap water is good. Canned is better than kibble. Mix some warm water in the canned food before feeding your baby, more water is better.
Eartipped ferals shouldn’t have to hunt anymore. We do this while we are supporting the colony. They do just fine with up to half of their ear cut off, my vet usually does a third. TAV knows that the colonies will have human caretakers. Its his techs who are too worried about cosmetic damage to take enough off.
w00t!!! It didn’t show up on preview, and I’m afraid to edit that post. HURRAY!!! I’m smarter than Spike!!!
My big boy still wanted to go outside and I didn’t trust him to come back (coyotes and cars and evil humans, oh my), so I leash trained him. He suffered so much during the summers that he got a crewcut every spring.
Please, do it. After he’s fixed, he might turn into a smooshy cat like my ugly boy did. Even if he just lives his life as a wildling, you will have improved his quality of life and will have done something to stop the breeding.
If you go to Petfinders and find a rescue group in your area, they will probably be very happy to help you with your kittyboy, especially if you are willing to do the trapping and transport. Do be warned, after you start, you might end up like me…bragging more about a new trap than a new car, and having foster kittens to play with when the internets tick you off. Not that that is a bad thing, after all
Just bumping this old thread because I’m quite pleased with myself today.
Saw mom and the kittens mentioned earlier on Friday after them being out of sight for weeks. So I contacted a local feral cat organization and got permission to let them try and trap them on the property. The person from the FCO came out today and we got all three remaining kittens plus mom in less than 40 minutes. It helped enormously that they were mostly denning in a long narrow cardboard box and in one case one had retreated into an unattached length of industrial vent hose, from which they mostly could be scooped up and emptied into traps.
Sorry no pictures, but I’m hopeful the three ~5 1/2 week old kittens are young enough to be tamed and adopted. Mom will 99% likely be neutered and released back.
YES!!! Tamerlane, you just totally rock!!! HURRAY!!! Reading this post made my day. Its hard to say how feral the kittens are without knowing how feral the mother is, but at that age, their chances are good. You have changed the mother’s life for the better. You did such a good thing, thankyou, thankyou, thankyou!!!
