Caught Feral Mom But Not Her ~8+ Week Old Kittens

[drlith]

We had a feral mom and 4 kittens show up in our rural shed a few weeks back and set about to get them trapped/neutered. We set out food but they buggered off for a while. Then mom started making regular visits back to the shed for food in the evening, and a few days ago we saw 3 of the kittens in the shed as well. Kittens were at least 6 weeks old when first seen and are now 8+ weeks old, but they're clearly hanging out most of the time somewhere else. Well, when we set the trap, it didn't take long to catch mom. We transferred her to a crate so we could continue to try to catch the kittens, but I don't know if we're going to be successful.

My question is this: my plan was to take mom in to be spayed as soon as we can and then release her again, but my daughter pointed out that if we keep putting out the trap to try to catch the kittens, it may be just as likely that we'll just keep catching mom. Will she learn to avoid the trap (in this case a good thing)? Or would it be too stressful to her to keep her in the crate in a cool quiet place for a while to see if we can catch the kittens? I know that with the barn cat adoption programs they have you keep the cat in a crate in the location you'd like them to consider home for a few weeks, and I would like to have a barn cat that stuck around, whether it be mom or a couple of her kittens.

I'm pretty sure the kittens are old enough to wean so that's not high on my list of concerns.

 

[keeneland]

First off you need to take the Mother cat to be fixed the day after you trap so you need a plan in place. Even if the kittens are 8 weeks old they still need their mother IMO and you need to get them reunited as ASAP after the mother has had her surgery. If you wish to gentle the kittens you will need to trap and keep them inside. I am thinking we got our kittens fixed at around 5 months old because we had been told they could breed at 6 months old. We started with the boys and finished with the girls but that was the order they were trapped in and it just worked out that way. I think if you are just wanting barn cats and not house pets you might be better off only trapping when you take them for surgery the next day and keep them in a holding cage for recovery for 2 to 3 days afterward and then releasing. They will get wary of the trap. The most I have ever caught a cat is twice so they do remember! Best of luck!