TNR Handbook - Neighborhood Cats

Recommendations

Info

The Neighborhood Cats TNR Handbook the cats are confined and should always be used in pairs. Having two pairs available will permit more than one person at a time to feed and clean. Dividers may also come in handy during the trapping itself as, for example, when two cats get caught in the same trap and need to be quickly separated. In communities where TNR has taken hold, traps can often be obtained at little or no cost from “trap banks” run by local nonprofits. In other places, animal control or rescue groups may have traps to lend. To find out if there is a feral cat group operating near you which might be able to assist with equipment, log onto Alley Cat Allies’ website at www.alleycat.org, and do a search for their “Feral Friends Network.” The network lists feral cat organizations by state. If there are no resources available, then you may have to purchase traps yourself. This may limit how many cats you can trap at a time and may preclude doing a mass trapping of the entire colony at once. Stick to what you can afford and proceed with the TNR project as steadily as you can. Even in areas which do have trap banks, few stock trap dividers. These are relatively inexpensive items and can be easily ordered by mail, so you might want to purchase a pair to make sure you’ll have them (see “Recommended equipment – trap dividers” in Chapter 8 for prices and ordering information.) The availability of traps may be relevant to when you schedule your spay/neuter date. If you need twenty traps, but they won’t be available for a month, then there’s no point in scheduling the spay/neuter before then. To avoid having to re-schedule after you’ve picked a spay/neuter date, check into the availability of equipment first if that might be an issue. Then once a spay/neuter date is set, reserve the traps right away. 37
8. Trapping The Neighborhood Cats TNR Handbook Prior to trapping, a feeding pattern has been established, the cats have been counted and assessed, arrangements have been made for adoptables and sick cats, a spay/neuter date has been scheduled, and equipment and transportation have been lined up. In addition, efforts to foster good community relations have been made. While it’s difficult to ever entirely predict what will happen once you start catching the cats, having followed these steps will ensure the trapping goes as smoothly as possible and surprises are kept to a minimum. Proceeding in this type of thought out, strategized manner will mean less stress for the cats and for you. • The advantages of a mass trapping Whenever possible, the mass trapping of an entire colony at the same time is preferable over a gradual “one-cat-at-a-time” approach for several reasons. First, the situation at the site is often in crisis with too many cats and kittens, neighbors complaining and threats to harm the cats. By neutering the entire colony at once, the crisis gets quickly resolved from the immediate, dramatic decrease in the amount of noise and odor and the prevention of more kittens. Second, your ability to catch all the cats in the colony is enhanced by doing a mass trapping. When you trap one cat at a time, you run into a problem when you get down to the last few cats and have to pick them out from the rest of the colony. This can be difficult. In comparison, when you’re down to the last few cats during a mass trapping, they’re the only ones out there plus they’re getting increasingly hungry as the trapping period proceeds. Third, in the long run, a mass trapping is much less work. It’s more intensive, but in the end you only have to find a holding space once, take care of the cats while they’re confined once, transport the cats once, etc. These efforts have to be continually repeated when the colony is slowly neutered. That said, not every community offers free or low cost spay/neuter for ferals, not everyone has access to the number of traps needed for a mass trapping, a large enough holding space for the entire colony cannot always be found, etc. In these circumstances, the goal becomes to catch and neuter as many of the cats at the same time as you can. 38
Page 1 and 2: The Neighborhood Cats TNR Handbook
Page 3 and 4: Contents The Neighborhood Cats TNR
Page 7 and 8: Foreword The Neighborhood Cats TNR
Page 35 and 36: 6. Winter Shelter The Neighborhood
Page 43: The Neighborhood Cats TNR Handbook
Page 47 and 48: This is easily gotten around by tap
Page 63 and 64: • Hard-to-catch cats The Neighbor
Page 69 and 70: • Directions for use by Laura Bur
Page 73 and 74: 10. Caring for Cats in Traps The Ne
Page 91 and 92: 13. Return to the Colony The Neighb
Page 93 and 94: 14. Relocation & Sanctuaries • Re
Page 95 and 96:
The Neighborhood Cats TNR Handbook
Page 97 and 98:
Page 99 and 100:
Page 101 and 102:
Page 103 and 104:
Page 105 and 106:
Page 107 and 108:
16. Feral Cat Resources Neighborhoo
Page 109 and 110:
Page 111 and 112:
Page 113 and 114:
Page 115:
show all

TNR Handbook - Neighborhood Cats

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?