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Feral cat densNeighborhood Cats Feral Cat DenModels 711 (White) & 721 (Grey); 17”L x 12”W x 17”HTomahawk Live Trap, www.livetrap.com; 800-272-8727A “feral cat den” is a rectangular carrier speciallydesigned for feral cats. It comes with a sliding,guillotine-style plastic front door and a round portholedoor on the side which opens by flipping it upwards. Ifthe den is inside a regular cage, the side door can beopened and closed without having to open the cagedoor. Instead, you can reach in through the bars of thecage with a yardstick or similar long item and flip thedoor open or shut. This is a great safety feature when itcomes to feral cats. It eliminates the chance of escapewhich is ever-present if the door of a cage is opened while a feral cat is loose inside.As a rule, after being trapped as part of a TNR project, cats should remain in theirtraps until they are released back outside, except during the spay/neuter surgery. Wediscourage people from routinely transferring cats out of traps and into cages.Occasionally, however, there may be a cat who needs a longer than usual confinementand so will need to be housed in a normal cage. For example, a feral mom with a younglitter of kittens may need to be caged for several weeks while she raises them. An injuredor sick cat may need a longer stay inside a cage as well. In these cases, a feral cat den isneeded.A feral cat den can come in handy in othersituations as well. It may be easier to transporta cat inside a den instead of a larger trap. Orthere may be a shortage of traps for a particularproject and one can be freed up by temporarilytransferring a cat from a trap into a den. Thiscan be easily done because the sliding frontdoor of the den will line up with the sliding reardoor of the trap. (See the section, “Transfersfrom traps,” in Chapter 9.) If you use a droptrap, a captured cat will need to be transferredout – a feral cat den can be used for this purpose as well because of its front door. Atransfer cage, described in the next section, will also work for these other uses.Regular cat carriers should not be used with feral cats! When inside a cage, it’sdifficult to lock a regular carrier’s door shut without opening the cage door first, creatingthe potential for escape. In addition, a normal carrier’s front door swings open to the sideand does not line up with the rear or transfer doors of traps. This makes transfers intoand out of the carrier treacherous. Simply put, the risks of escape and injury are too high.Safety requires using the proper equipment which, in this case, is a feral cat den, not aregular cat carrier.64