So in my last thread a few months ago I posted about a cat whose gender I was trying to identify (he turned out to be male, but I changed my answer before trapping after seeing testicles and seeing him spray). Since there were only two feral cats in my neighborhood and one was already TNRed, I threw in the towel for the winter after repeated failures to get him into a humane trap, then resumed in January when I noticed a big gash on his neck that he was constantly trying to lick at. I found someone on Facebook that lent me a drop trap, and took him to the Cleveland APL once I finally caught him. In between my failed attempts at catching Sidekick, I ended up gutting my humane trap until it looked like this:
(ignore the t-shirt on the bottom, that wasn't used during trapping attempts)
While it didn't work with Sidekick, it was successful on two other occasions. The first one wasn't a TNR attempt, but there is an indoor/outdoor cat in my neighborhood who is 1) a terrible bully, and 2) hid in the bushes (until I removed them) under my bird feeder every day trying to kill the birds that landed nearby. He wasn't stray because he wasn't ever searching out food, but I couldn't attract him to me either because our only interactions were when I would spray the hose if I happened to hear a fight outside. He had a tag on his collar, and I was hoping to find out what it said so I could contact the owner and let them know he was interfering with my TNR attempts and just in general being a jerk. I left the trap out during the day with nothing but catnip, and he graciously volunteered to test if the Lexan would hold up to a cat attempting to break it. Fortunately, it held up. Unfortunately, his name tag only said "Oscar." Great. I let him go 5 minutes later.
The most recent attempt was also successful, though it had a sad ending. Last Thursday night around 3 AM my cameras recorded about 4 minutes of screaming between Sidekick and a cat that looked just like him. I was able to feed that cat the next two nights, then put out my trap (with the door tied open) on Sunday night. He went in without hesitation. Since I know my town's animal control department endorses TNR, I called and she said if I could get him before Tuesday morning, she'd take him to the Cleveland APL. Again, despite the fact that he ate the previous night, he went right in, and for mere kibble. Unfortunately, she called me the next day and said that the cat tested FeLV+ and was in overall poor health, and was euthanized. She then called me again today (she still has to return my trap) and said that everyone that saw my trap was impressed, and wanted to know if I could either make a couple for the city, or tell her how I made it. I said I couldn't remember how I made it without looking at it, so once I get it back I'd start writing up instructions.
That being said, I want to build another one from scratch instead of gutting an existing trap. While the Lexan I used is durable enough, my biggest concern is that regular use would result in it getting scratched up, not to mention it has the potential to start yellowing over time. This particular trap only has one door at the moment as I never got around to setting up a back door. Some other things that I think could be improved:
(ignore the t-shirt on the bottom, that wasn't used during trapping attempts)
While it didn't work with Sidekick, it was successful on two other occasions. The first one wasn't a TNR attempt, but there is an indoor/outdoor cat in my neighborhood who is 1) a terrible bully, and 2) hid in the bushes (until I removed them) under my bird feeder every day trying to kill the birds that landed nearby. He wasn't stray because he wasn't ever searching out food, but I couldn't attract him to me either because our only interactions were when I would spray the hose if I happened to hear a fight outside. He had a tag on his collar, and I was hoping to find out what it said so I could contact the owner and let them know he was interfering with my TNR attempts and just in general being a jerk. I left the trap out during the day with nothing but catnip, and he graciously volunteered to test if the Lexan would hold up to a cat attempting to break it. Fortunately, it held up. Unfortunately, his name tag only said "Oscar." Great. I let him go 5 minutes later.
The most recent attempt was also successful, though it had a sad ending. Last Thursday night around 3 AM my cameras recorded about 4 minutes of screaming between Sidekick and a cat that looked just like him. I was able to feed that cat the next two nights, then put out my trap (with the door tied open) on Sunday night. He went in without hesitation. Since I know my town's animal control department endorses TNR, I called and she said if I could get him before Tuesday morning, she'd take him to the Cleveland APL. Again, despite the fact that he ate the previous night, he went right in, and for mere kibble. Unfortunately, she called me the next day and said that the cat tested FeLV+ and was in overall poor health, and was euthanized. She then called me again today (she still has to return my trap) and said that everyone that saw my trap was impressed, and wanted to know if I could either make a couple for the city, or tell her how I made it. I said I couldn't remember how I made it without looking at it, so once I get it back I'd start writing up instructions.
That being said, I want to build another one from scratch instead of gutting an existing trap. While the Lexan I used is durable enough, my biggest concern is that regular use would result in it getting scratched up, not to mention it has the potential to start yellowing over time. This particular trap only has one door at the moment as I never got around to setting up a back door. Some other things that I think could be improved:
- I think the front door needs to change. Whenever Sidekick hesitated to go in, I noticed that he'd look up at that big hanging door and change his mind. The door doesn't necessarily have to be Lexan too (it would probably need to be braced, as while Lexan is extremely difficult to break, it can still bend), but I think it would need to be placed in a less obvious manner.
- I don't have a cage divider, and when I saw the cost of one, it surprised me how high it is for basically a big fork. I'd think if you could make a slot where a piece of plastic/aluminum/whatever could slide in, it would be a cheaper and potentially more effective solution.
You really have a great idea going here and I can definitely see that a trap which is more opened might ease the fears of some cats who need to be trapped. Maybe you should patent this. It might really take off in the world of TNR.