# Introduction



## FarmCatRescue (Aug 15, 2014)

I'm 47 years old and have had cats most of my life. Currently I have four of my own and am caretaker of a TNR colony on a family farm about twenty miles from where I live.

In total, I've had 32 farm cats spayed/neutered and vaccinated (I achieved 100% spay/neuter a couple of years ago), and I've been trying as best I can to socialize and find adopters for the cats that are adoptable. Between adoptions and attrition, the colony is now down to twelve cats. (Yes, TNR works.) I'm a sometime advocate for public policy and helped support passage of a law that made TNR legal in the county where I live. I try to promote community-based TNR programs in rural areas of the county and advise people on trapping techniques and shelter construction. 

My own four cats are all from the farm. The fourth is a sweet tuxedo male with a bad leg wound that took six weeks on antibiotics to cure. I had intended to nurse him back to health and find a new owner for him, but you know how that goes.

I'm here at this forum partly to try to see if people have socialization tips to make some of the borderline-adoptable cats better adoption candidates. And I always feel like I need advertising advice for finding new adopters since adult cats are harder to place than kittens.


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## 10cats2dogs (Jun 16, 2013)

Welcome Silvestris!! WOW! You're AWESOME for doing all of this for the cats!!:thumbup::thumbup:
We have a lot of TNR'S here on the forum and advice is freely shared by all!
Looking forward to seeing some pictures of your bunch!!
Sharon


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## TabbCatt (Mar 26, 2014)

Warm welcome to you, Silverstris!
I can't believe all the hard work you do! Wow! I second 10cats and would also love to see your farm kitties! I'm sure you have a lot to contirbute here as well, with all of your experience!! Great to have you here!


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## Jetlaya67 (Sep 26, 2012)

It is awesome that you can help all those kitties. Welcome to the forum!


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## FarmCatRescue (Aug 15, 2014)

Thanks for the welcome! I have plenty of pictures. I feed the cats on a deck to get them out and around me. Then, when they've eaten, the pans go into an outbuilding where they are protected from rain and, to the extent possible, from wildlife.


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## Jetlaya67 (Sep 26, 2012)

AWW, they are so cute! They all look so healthy. Thank you for the picture. Feel free to post more, we love pictures here.


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## FarmCatRescue (Aug 15, 2014)

I think some of my best tips would be some capture methods I developed. Catching the first few cats in a colony is easy, but then, it gets a LOT harder because then you'll start catching the friendly ones that have already been spayed/neutered.

My favorite method is to take a carrier with a metal front gate, tie a strong string to the gate, and run the string out the back of the carrier. Then, I put wet food in the back of the carrier as bait. I can stand back as far as 15-20 feet. When the cat I want to catch goes inside, I pull the string to close the door and keep the string taut as I go up to latch the door. 

My second method, for harder-to-catch cats, is a plastic laundry basket with a square hole cut in one end and a sliding cardboard panel installed. While they're eating, I sneak up and drop the basket over the cat, maneuver the carrier in front of the panel and then slide open the cardboard panel. The cats will usually escape the basket into the carrier. This is similar to the drop-trap method that I've seen others using. 

Still, with some cats, I had to try 3-4 times to catch them. Once you've spooked them with an unsuccessful attempt, it's not going to happen that day.


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## TabbCatt (Mar 26, 2014)

Wow, those are some clever tricks you've developed! I guess it's all about patience and using some ingenuity? 

I am so surprised at the large baking dish you have out there, lol. Looks like a kitty buffet there, but it sure attracts them in! Great photos of the kitties! I'd love to see your personal four felines, too!


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## 10cats2dogs (Jun 16, 2013)

Great seeing the cats! They look healthy too!!:thumbup::thumbup:
Sharon


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## FarmCatRescue (Aug 15, 2014)

TabbCatt said:


> I am so surprised at the large baking dish you have out there, lol. Looks like a kitty buffet there, but it sure attracts them in!


Those are aluminum trays from Costco, very cost-effective. Using a larger feeding tray allows multiple cats to eat with less conflict. 

The matriarch of the colony, Sophie, from reports of how long she'd been there, lived to be 19 living on the farm, outdoors, finally succumbing to what appeared to be kidney failure. She was extraordinarily intelligent. She would move along treelines from tree to tree like some kind of special forces soldier. All the cats there are reportedly her descendants. 

While she was alive, I had to feed her in a separate bowl because she was the alpha female (a tortie). Anyone that crowded her in the least would get a whap across the head. With people, she was perfectly sweet and could be handled like any house cat, but with other cats, she was at the top of the hierarchy and never let others get away with anything.

From my observations, this TNR colony is clearly a matriarchy with a core of females who have a certain rank among themselves. There will be one top male, too, but they never challenge the females.


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## spirite (Jul 31, 2012)

Hi Silvestris! Wow, congratulations on the amazing job you've done with your colony! There are quite a few members here involved in TNR and/or who foster and socialize kitties. I think it's safe to say that just about everyone here is a strong supporter of TNR. I've never seen a feral cat colony anywhere that I've lived; if I did, though, I think I'd have to get involved, though I don't think there's a local TNR group. There aren't even any strays around my neighborhood (other than the one I'm taking care of ), which is great, but living in an area without ferals or strays also makes it easy for people to turn a blind eye to the number of cats in need.

Your colony kitties certainly look healthy and happy! 

When you get a chance, we'd love to see pics of your 4 too!


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## struckers (Oct 2, 2013)

So this thread is immensely helpful to me, so I thank you so much for posting some helpful hints. I was linked to it from a poster that's been keeping track of my own thread, wherein I'm attempting to trap a semi-feral boy. We're actually going to keep him as an outside cat if we can't find anyone who wants to adopt him, since I imagine he won't appreciate being stuck indoors. He's relatively well-socialized, but is still skittish and nearly full-grown, so I'm imagining I'll be hard-pressed to find someone willing to spend the extra time he would require to be adopted out.

The hierarchy of your colony is so very interesting and cool. I have my own at my university, and after I finish with my boy I'm going to work (with the help of a woman who has been caring for them for over a year) to TNR them. There are only about 7 of them, but I know if I don't get to work on them there will be plenty to come. 

Then there are the strays behind Wal-Mart and another colony of them behind a pizza restaurant... The work you've done is truly amazing, though! I look forward to reading more of your posts.


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## FarmCatRescue (Aug 15, 2014)

Another benefit of TNR is the extent to which it reduces aggression and injuries among the male cats. For obvious reasons, I prioritized getting the females spayed first, and when that was done, fighting among the males dropped to almost zero, even among the ones that hadn't been neutered yet. There were no more abscesses or torn-up ears. Also, when I brought the un-spayed females to my house overnight before heading out early the next morning to the spay clinic, I noticed that my own neutered males, even though they were in a different part of the house, would start to get testy with each other. The smell of just one female cat in heat brings out the worst in the males, neutered or not.


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## FarmCatRescue (Aug 15, 2014)

struckers said:


> We're actually going to keep him as an outside cat if we can't find anyone who wants to adopt him, since I imagine he won't appreciate being stuck indoors. He's relatively well-socialized, but is still skittish and nearly full-grown, so I'm imagining I'll be hard-pressed to find someone willing to spend the extra time he would require to be adopted out.


I think you never know how cats are going to adapt to the inside. The first group of cats I brought home was a mother cat and four kittens, and the mother was very happy to be brought indoors. Never having been in a house before, she looked around for about twenty minutes then just collapsed on the carpet with a look like she was in heaven. Food, water, clean floors, heating and air conditioning? I did let her outside some later on, but she definitely enjoyed being indoors.


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