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Old May 25th, 2012, 08:32 AM
althe althe is offline
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Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: Montreal
Posts: 36
Hello everyone,

I wanted to share recent developments with you all. I’m attaching a photo of the two dog crates we have joined together for this feral mom and her 3 kittens.

This cat is not just a bit feral, she’s feral period and shows no signs at all of ever having had any human contact. She growls and hisses and is threatening and she has lunged at me through the crate a couple times. I approach with extreme caution only to clean litter and leave food.

The feral mother has been inside this crate/housing for 5-6 days now and she is clearly very stressed. She has destroyed all the strips of cardboard we had tied around the bottom of crates simply to protect kittens from larger openings and she has been gradually destroying the very sturdy cardboard box the kittens were born in which we had placed inside the crate. This entire housing unit has been covered over with blankets; it’s placed in a workshop area behind the garage where there’s almost no noise or traffic. She does not use the litter box normally like a domesticated cat; a few times she has done her business outside the box and then emptied the litter box to cover her mess. Several times I found the litter box had been completely emptied it I could find no evidence that she had peed/pooed; she had just emptied the box. Maybe this is also a sign of stress. She eats the food I leave her.

The kittens are 5 weeks old this week. One of the 3 started exploring around the crate-housing 48 hours ago and started nibbling on the wet cat food. The other 2 only started this morning. I don’t spend any time with them, I don’t handle them. They will stay with their mother until at least 8 weeks old (approx. June 18). I’ve found a family for 1 kitten and still have to find homes for the other 2.

I’ve spoken with someone who’s involved in a local csr/tnr program. Thank god I have this person’s support and help because there’s no way I would have known how to proceed from this point onward. I’ve been given a lot of information about how to deal with a feral cat in this situation, which is not easy, fairly complicated, and sadly, does not always have a positive outcome.

If I have correctly understood, this is how it will unfold: After the kittens are separated from mother, I will transport her to a clinic where she’ll be tested for feline aids/leukemia. If she tests positive for either of these diseases, she’ll be euthanized. If she tests negative, she’ll be spayed. She will not be released back into my [her] neighborhood because I have immediate neighbors who have told me they would kill her, and this is the general point of view of many people around here. She will therefore have to be relocated to a new environment, and this will be the most difficult part of this whole experience.

I’ve been told that, based on the past experiences of relocating feral cats, approximately 40% have been lost; they simply disappeared so were possibly killed by vehicles or starved for lack of finding a food source. These ferals simply don’t successfully root to their new environment despite the work that dedicated people do to carefully and gradually try to acclimate them to the new environment before completely releasing them.

I had no idea what I was getting into. I will be moving away in a couple months and after watching this cat for nearly two years just barely survive our harsh winters and have three litters under the bushes, I simply couldn’t leave without at least trying to do something to at least stop this cycle. I have no experience with rescue, I have limited resources, and if it wasn’t for the support and advice of animal lovers on this website and the help of my local SPCA and the connection they gave me to a person who is dedicated and knowledgeable about feral cats, I would have been lost.

Thank you all for being here and for helping me. I will start another thread early next week in the hope of finding a guardian angel for this feral cat, because she really is going to need a guardian angel in about one month’s time if she’s going to have any chance of surviving.

teresa
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