26 August 2011 - Feral colonies

I have often written about our feral cats. Here is a short history. The colony was started over 25 years ago when Sandy, who lived across the street, started feeding a couple strays. Whether they were truly strays, or ferals, or neighbor’s cats who liked the idea of more food, we’ll never know, but cats started showing up and staying. Kittens happened. Skunks, possums and raccoons happened, too.

Ten years later Sandy moves to Belleville. She traps a few favorites and takes them with her. She sells the house to Ann Mary and Suzanne. They are faced with a yard full of hungry cats. They continue to feed the colony. The cats thrive. More kittens. Sometimes disease or death on the road decreases the population. Sometimes the mothers are so young they don’t know what to do with their litter, and the kittens die. But mostly, we just have more cats.

Over the last four years, cats have started to move into our yard. It dawns on me that this coincides with our dogless state. Hmm. At first one or two mothers had kittens in our yard. We had two hollow trees that were perfect for kitten nests. We were not feeding these cats, so when it was time, the mothers moved the kids back across the street to Ann Mary and Suzanne’s yard. No real problem, yet.

This is Casper with the incredible blue eyes.

However, one starts to get attached to certain cats. In our case, it was Casper, a very pretty Siamese mix-- blue eyes and gray points. She had three kids in the hollow box elder. As they got older she moved them into Lyka’s old dog house.  We made the fatal mistake of naming them: Hughie, Louie and Dewey. Worse yet, because they were fall babies, we started feeding them. They were just getting to the really cute pouncy kitten stage when the snows came. How could we not feed them? Results? They stayed.

Next in the saga, Steve Wilson moves his family to Northville. Due to the economy, he can’t sell his house, so he rents it. The new family starts trapping the cats and calling Animal Control to pick them up. Louie and Dewey disappeared this way, as did many of the cats that the girls were feeding. One evening when Hughie didn’t show up for dinner, I found her in the trap. I had the new people release her and explained she was mine. (What was I thinking?)

Hughie gets pregnant. Four kittens. One dies within the first month, one disappears about 6 months old (see bad neighbors) and the other two, Big and Little Fluff mostly live in our backyard. Fast forward six months. Little Fluff gets pregnant, gives birth in freezing downpour and loses all the kittens. Hughie gets pregnant. Gives birth to five deformed kittens. One dies, the others get to the stage where they are eating dry kibble. Meanwhile Fluff is pregnant again. Five kittens. Robin and I came to the decision that we had to take the deformed kittens to the Humane Society. We ended up taking Hughie’s four and Little Fluff’s five. This was a hard thing to do, but necessary. You can see how quickly a colony can grow.

While at the Humane Society we learned about a new program for ferals: a trap-neuter-release program. Jack and I signed up for the class. A side benefit of the class was that you could get your ferals spayed or neutered for ten bucks each. Great! The class was Sunday, we went home with seven traps. The following weekend we were all set up and trapped seven cats and one very pissed off possum.

Tom, the patriarch of the colony

To my great delight, one of the seven was Tom: the current patriarch and defender of the colony. Every spring he would show up looking absolutely bedraggled. He would be limping, covered with sores and strips of fur hanging from gouges, all because he had to maintain his position and fight off the younger males. It was so sad. He had also started chasing Big Fluff away from the colony as well. Guess Big Fluff was getting old enough to become competition. Big Fluff and Tom were released back into the yard this morning. Hughie, Little Fluff and Tabico will be released tomorrow morning.

Ann Mary will be attending the September training session then trapping their remaining cats. As part of the program, the cats get ear tipped, which is a universal symbol of a spayed/neutered feral. The animal control people tend to look the other way when a colony is managed. We have our colony registered online, facts about the cats, and as part of being a colony caretaker, they organization asks that you keep the information on the site updated. Life, death, sickness and health are documented.

I am thrilled about this on many levels. No more kittens! A better life for all the cats involved! And on my own selfish side, there won’t be 17 cats lounging around the backyard when I’m trying to sell the house. I didn’t mention this but we did remove eleven babies. Enough is enough.

Left to right: Big Fluff, Hughie, Little Fluff

Meanwhile Hughie and Big Fluff have become quite dear to me and I fantasize about how to get them to Salt Lake. I know—don’t go there! But the thought was been rolling around in the back of my head for some time.

Oakland County received a $300,000 grant from PetSmart to help with the Trap Neuter Release program for feral cats. This is amazing. I will be supporting Pet Smart with my pocketbook because of this. We learned in the class that Oakland County alone has more than 200,000 feral cats.

We are doing our part to help.


Two weeks later:  Very sad addendum.  Big and Little Fluff as well as Tabico have disappeared. I can only think that the rotten people across the street trapped them and dumped them at the local park. I just can't bear to think about this.