2nd Release Back Home

Dave and Linda

On Saturday December 11th we released 10 more cats.  Originally it was going to be 11 cats but one of them seemed friendly and let me pet her, so we decided to hold on to her for one more week in hopes of finding a barn for her to go to.

One last look before they took off

Once we opened the carriers they again all ran out as fast as they could and were out of our sights within seconds.  Linda helped Dave release them and she seemed to get a kick out of them enjoying their freedom.

14 Cats Released

1st car load

 Yesterday David and I released 14 of the 32 cats back to their home in the woods.  It took 2 car trips and some careful separating since these cats have been sharing cages together, but they all seemed very happy to go back home.  Once David opened up the doors to their carriers all but 2 cats bee-lined out of there as fast as they could.  Not sure if the orange guy and the calico were scared to leave or they didn't want to head back to the woods but after a minute or two they also booked on out of there and were out of our sights fairly quickly. It was very sad to see them go, but the woods is their home and we told ourselves that they will be happier there than stuck in a cage.

So what cats did we release?

We released the cats that went to the first three No Nonsense Neutering appointments (11/18, 11/23, & 11/24).  Frazzle was part of the first group at NNN but she was placed at Trinka's (a Cat Shack volunteer) back on 11/21 where she will stay until she is adopted out as a barn cat.

Ready, set, Go!!

The next group to be released on either December 11th or 12th will be the 5 cats that went to The Cat Shack Clinic on the 11/21, the 4 from the fourth NNN appointment on 11/30 and the 2 from the fifth NNN appointment on 12/2.  The 2 cats that went to NNN on 12/3 we aren't sure what we are going to do with them at this time since they are very old and might not survive the winter.

4 cats still need to go to No Nonsense Neutering - 2 will go as a walk-in on Tuesday (12/7) and the last 2 will go on Wednesday (12/8) and they will be released on December 18th after having a 7-10 day recovery period.

Rescue is Coming to an End...

David and I are going to set traps tonight (12/3) and tomorrow (12/4).  If we do not get anymore cats in the next 2 days we are going to start releasing them on Sunday (12/5).  The cats that we had held onto since the first appointment at NNN on November 18th, will be the first group let go.  We will also release the cats from both the 11/23 and 11/24 appointments as well.  The rest of the cats will stay with us for about another week so they can fully recover from surgery and then they will be released either on December 11 or 12th.

Ideally we would like all of these adult cats released to a barn, but we have had no luck finding one.  If someone can locate a barn or another location for these cats please feel free to let us know and we can look into it.  Releasing cats to another location can sometimes be hard on the cats since they are not familiar with the area and if other cats are already there they might not take a liking to the new colony that has arrived; so it is probably best in the long run to release them back to the area they already know and call home. 

Unless we catch more cats in the next 2 days, we will once again see 30 cats back in our parking lot/woods; but thankfully 11 out of the 41 are kittens and they will be placed into loving forever homes.  So we will now need to make sure that this colony has plenty of food and water starting on Monday, December 6th and we will also need to keep an eye on them for any cats that may be sick or if there is another litter.  Please read the articles I posted in the Feral Cats 101 section of this blog for more information.

Thank you to everyone that has donated money, food, blankets/towels, and litter!  Thank you to Theresa (with The Cat Shack), Brenda, Darlene, Ralph and Linda for transporting these cats to and from NNN.  Trinka (with The Cat Shack) thank you for lending us 13 traps to catch these beautiful babies and for all the advice you have given David and myself on how to trap them - the KFC tip was awesome!!  Thank you to The Cat Shack, Trinka and Kimberly for lending us all the cages to house these cats.  Thank you to Linda, Brenda, Eileen, Theresa and Trinka for lending us carriers so these cats had a secure place to hide out and so we could transport them in a cozier place rather than inside the traps. Thank you to Brenda, RaeAnn, Denise, Eileen, Linda, and Darlene for helping clean out the cages. Thank you to Denise and RaeAnn for feeding these guys their dry and wet food practically every night when they were still outside. Thank you to Anne for taking a sick kitten (Andy) from us and supplying him with the medicine he desperately needed.  A BIG thank you goes out to The Cat Shack for getting some of our ferals spayed and neutered at their clinic, giving the kittens their vaccines and tests, supplying us with all the Frontline we needed for the kittens, the Clavamox, eye ointment, litter boxes, litter, and dry food.  Thank you to Tanya from SPICER for helping vaccinate and test some of our kittens. Also, a thank you also goes out to my husband David for putting up with me and this crazy project I got him involved in, we have only been married for 2 months and after doing this for 1 month straight I think we can handle just about anything - I love you! 

David and I could not have helped this colony without the help we have received from all of you - THANK YOU!!

Jaime and David