The Littles

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August 12th 2009 5:38 am
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Hi, All!

As seen on my page, Mommy has "adopted" a family of ferals, the Littles. Their names are Abigail Little (the Mommy cat, tuxedo), Brownie Little (brown tabby with white) and Cloud Little (gray tabby with white). Of course, she speaks of them as if they're her own, and often refers to them as "The Leetles."

She leaves a bowl of food out everyday (yes, OUR FOOD, along with fresh water). She sets it out on the deck and each night, the Leetles show up for their evening meal. Her goal is TNR, but so far, the closest she can get to them is about 6 feet before they run away.

The kittens look to be about 6-10 weeks old (based on kitten pics from Mr. D's page...thanks Mr. D!), but Mommy is afraid that something is wrong. We haven't seen Cloud in over a week. Abigail always shows up with Brownie now, but no Cloud. We are (probably correctly) assuming the worst, so at this time, we would like to request some suggestions from other Catsters.

Does anyone know an easy way to trap Abby and Brownie? We feel that the sooner they can be TNR, the safer they'll be. Also, is Brownie too young to be altered? It's been awhile (almost 20 years, yikes!) since Mommy has had to have a kitten neutered. Finally, is there any other way to keep them safe, even if Mommy is unable to catch them, or will "nature take its course" regardless of what we do?

Thanks in advance for any advice. If it has four legs, whiskers and meows, Mommy will do anything she can to help.

Purrs,
Baby Mo'

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Purred by: KIBBLES (Catster Member)

August 12th 2009 at 7:41 am

Good luck with your new mommy and babies. We had a hard time getting PJ and her litters. We just kept going out everday and calling her and the babies. They sometime where at the neighbors hiding in the shed or brushes. But we never gave up. We made sure there was plenty of food and water. We would sit outside while they ate and we tood a string toy and some catnip toys with us. They would love to play. We would leave the catnip toys for them but always took the string toy with us. Later we took two of our cat carriers outside and left them. They would smell them and once in a while would go in them, but not stay long. Than one day one of the kittens went in a laid down. We waited until the other one went in. Shut the door and we had the kittens. They were about 6-8 weeks by than. Getting PJ was more challenging. But after a week or 2 she went in the carriers too. That was her 1st litter. We got them fixed, except for PJ. Getting ready to go to the vets her carrier fell apart and she got loose. Now she didn't trust us. We had to start all over again. In the mean time she had another litter this time 5 babies. She trusted us enough to bring the babies to us but not let us hold her. So we just kept feeding her and holding and loving the new litter. After about 4-5 weeks we knew we had to get them all or we would be having another set of babies. We have a small barn style shed and PJ took her babies in their. Well we shut the door and they were all in there. Now to get them out was a challenge to say the least. We got PJ first, she was just easy. She must have known we were going to help here and the little ones. We took her in the house. Now for the 5 littles ones. One by one we just grabbed them. The last one was the hardest. Believe it or not we had to clean all most all the stuff out of the shed to get her, but we were not leaving her there byherself. Finally we got her hiding under the folding lawn chairs in the corner. Success!!!! Well now that they are all in the house we had to keep the seperate from our other babies till we got to the vets. So they spent the night in the computer room. PJ knew the routine as she been there before. So I guess that's what calmed the little ones. We called our vet right away and they knew the story with PJ and were so glad we finally caught her they took us in the very next morning to check everyone out. We had PJ fixed and when the babies were 6 months old they were fixed. Now we did keep all of them a total with the 2 litters of 7 kittens and PJ. Everyone is loving their house and growning like weeds. We did loose our precious Tigger a few months ago to FIP. Tigger was from PJ's first litter of 2. We still have Fozzy Bear. He is so shy, but he is coming around. He is 1year old now. The other 5 are 10 months old now. We love them all. We have a total of 18 in house. What a bunch. Hope you can TNR your group soon.
Love, Kibbles, Francis & Yoda and their family