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- Jul 26, 2018
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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.
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.