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Trapping Feral Cats
When you borrow a trap from CARE we will instruct you on the proper use of that trap and give you advice on how to go about trapping your colony cats. You will need to sign the CARE TRAP LOAN FORM which you can download and fill out ahead of time, or get one from the trap coordinator you work with. There are many sites with advice on how to trap a feral cat. Several links are given below to help you learn what the issues are and how to deal with them. If you have a hard to trap animal let us know and we can help.
Trapping
- Dusk and Dawn are the best times for feeding and for trapping feral cats. Establish a routine feeding time and place. The more exact you can make it the easier your trapping will be.
- Get a humane trap from a CARE feline rescue volunteer. They will instruct you on how to use that particular model. NOTE: CARE is constantly in need of more traps. If you or anyone you know would be willing to make traps for us please let us know! We have detailed instructions for most trap types available (see below).
- Place the trap in the feeding area for one to two days so that cats become accustomed to seeing it and the smell of any other cats previously trapped in it.
- Set the trap so that it is open but will NOT trigger closed. If you have an unmodified automatic model tie the main door open with a bit of string. ( be sure string is trimmed short so that cats do not play with it or inject any of it. String can be very harmful to a cat should they eat it.)
- Begin placing ALL food within the trap as far in advance of your appointments as possible. one week or as close as possible is best.
- Even if there are several cats in the colony that have been fixed all of them should be forced to enter the trap to eat. If you leave any food outside it is impossible to control which cats enter to eat and which do not.
- Skip one feeding prior to your first trapping attempt. Missing one meal is not at all unusual for a hunter and will not hurt them at all. It will however make them all more likely to show up on schedule for the nest feeding time.
- If this is the first trapping event
- and you don’t care which animals you get put one to two servings of a more tempting than average food into the back of the trap.
- Remove string and make sure trap door is functioning properly. Set the trap to automatically trigger if that option is available. Collect the cat/s that enter and take them for the appointment. (remember to contact Care as per the instructions you have received to confirm your appointment and successful trapping)
- If this is a colony in progress
- and you have a few animals already altered you will need a manual trap to catch specific targets. Fill the trap with quite a lot of food to be sure there is enough for several animals to enter, eat and leave. Wait until one or more of your target animals has entered and pull string to close door.
- As soon as trap is closed cover it and remove from feeding area to holding area. Holding area should be as far from feeding area as possible to keep other cats from being spooked.
- Difficult to trap cats:
- There are some cats that are highly suspicions and seem to totally refuse to enter the trap. the first thing to try is a more enticing food. If cats are accustomed to dry food, try canned. If they are accustomed to canned, try tuna, sardines, fired chicken or other strong smelling meats.
- You may also need to try several different types of traps to find what it is they are avoiding. A wood trap is larger but holds more smells than a metal trap. The shiny metal may make them nervous on one types of automatic trap but they have no qualms about entering a brown painted metal trap.
- We have a few large drop traps available for the most wary of cats if all else has failed. However, they do take two people to operate.
For more information please refer to the following sites
Links from the Ally cat Allies page
Trapping Feral Cats
http://amby.com/cat_site/carter_2.html Day in the life - a review of daily habits of a typical colony. Great information for caretakers and those starting a new TNR project to determine the best feeding and trapping times!
Tips on Hard to Catch Cats
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