[mikischo]

Originally Posted by Sew-sew-steve;

i figured by the time they get old enough to be seperated, i would have kiko spayed/neutered/vaccinated/dewormed etc..etc...

i guess ill only take one other cat for now, and later on when i have more leverage i guess i can take one in, thats how it works right?

im getting too ahead of myself i g lol. but i want kiko to have a playmate. so i guess ill take the orange one, and if i can (i dont know if i will) spay the mother cat.

the thing is, i wanted to earn the trust of the babies, which means i would need the mother around. otherwise it would be difficult to catch them alone, and plus i wanted to take advantage of their age and get them used to human contact, living in a house, etc..etc....

I can understand where you are coming from on this. This mama cat and especially the three little kitties have touched your heart and you want at least try to give the kittens a better life than having to fend for themselves on the streets. Most or all of us here on pets.ca would not be able to look the other way either. What you are saying about the importance of the kitties having human contact when they are still young makes perfect sense to me. If cats are born outside to stray or feral cats and don't have contact with humans before they reach a certain age (about two or three months or so, I believe) it can be difficult if not impossible to gain their trust. If you go ahead with this, I am glad you have decided to keep just one. Don't bite off more than you can chew.

Originally Posted by Sew-sew-steve;

catlover it just doesnt work like that over here
if the cats over populate the area, and many complaints are issued, THEN the authorities come and either relocate or just put them to sleep.

From what I have read your government's method of putting cats to sleep is very unpleasant and relocation does not solve the problem. Other colonies of cats will simply move in to fill the vacancy. Trap, vaccinate, neuter/spay, return (TVNR or TNR) is the only thing that has proven to work for cats that are too feral to be adoptable.

Originally Posted by Sew-sew-steve;

if i were to call a shelter or rescue group and ask for someone to come pick up the cat, i wouldnt get anyone to come and pick up the cat.

i'd have to take the mother cat there, and i dont even know where the area is.

I'm sure you know what the situation is there better than we do. I did a lot of googling hoping to find some resources for you that you might not be aware of, but from what I have read it seems that the only two shelters are PAWS and Animal Friends League and you are right. They do not have the resources to come out and rescue cats or dogs and they rely on people to bring the animals to them. I could not find a lot of information on PAWS policy on what animals they will and will not accept but Animal Friends League gives quite a bit of detail on the following page:

http://www.animalfriendskuwait.org/faq#

Here is part of what they say:


"9. What do I do if I find a stray animal?

Animal Friends relies upon citizen volunteers to rescue animals. We do not have paid staff able to conduct rescues of stray animals, so we kindly ask you to help us help the animals you may find. All we generally ask is that you collect the animal and bring it to our shelter. If this is impossible for a valid reason, we will try to come up with another solution. Please be careful when rescuing any animal. Dogs should have wagging tails or be relatively immobile, while cats can be rescued using a towel to protect your self. For information regarding what kinds of animals we will accept, please see the question “What animals do we rescue?” If an animal is severely injured, it should be brought directly to a veterinarian (see the “Resources” link to find a list of veterinarians).

10. What animals do we rescue?

Animal Friends is a non-governmental, charitable organization. We therefore do not act as animal control. In most cases, we rely upon concerned citizens to bring injured and stray animals to our facility in Wafra. There are some exceptions to this rule, such as when the animal is truly dangerous or severely injured, so that moving the animal would result in undue pain. We use the guidelines below to prioritize rescue operations within budgetary, personnel, and space restrictions (priority is given in order from 1 through 7):

1.Animals that are actively being starved, withheld from water, beaten, burned, buried, poisoned, shot, have been run over, or are otherwise in severe distress.
2.Animals that are not wild but are lost or abandoned pets.
3.Animals that are living in cages or are tied, chained, or otherwise have their mobility limited and are living without adequate shade, water, food, and human attention. (We have limited capabilities in this category that are within the rule of law).
4.Animals living near major roads or that are otherwise at risk of being run over or poisoned by the government.
5.Litters of puppies.
6.Litters of kittens, if and only if it is confirmed their mother has abandoned them for more than 24 hours. People should not intervene with kittens unless they are in imminent danger. It is likely their mother will return after finding food.
7.Wild packs of stray dogs.

We do not rescue or accept street cats that are reasonably healthy. Animal population control is the responsibility of the government and the overpopulation of cats is beyond our capabilities.
"

Originally Posted by catlover2

What I don't understand is why if you caught the momacat that you would not get her spayed? or just let her go free again after she raised the kittens?

I agree that it is extremely important that this poor mama is, at the very least, spayed. Otherwise in a few short months she will be in rougher shape than she is now and bringing more homeless kitties into the world to a sad life on the streets. We cannot save them all. Even here in Canada we have far too many strays and ferals and we only have the resources to save a fraction of them. That is one of the many reasons spaying and neutering is so very important.

In my opinion, if you do trap mama and babies, the best outcome would be if you were able to get the shelter to accept mama and two of her babies once the third kitty no longer needs her. This way mama and babies would be spayed/neutered, vetted, vaccinated and kept safe until they found good homes. If she proves to be reasonably tame, do they need to know that she was a stray you found on the street? Also they did state that they will not accept street cats that are reasonably healthy. It doesn't sound to me like this mama is too healthy. Even if you had to pay a surrender fee it would be far less costly than doing all this yourself.

Well it looks like I have written a book but it is late and I'm too tired to figure out how to shorten it.

Keep us posted.