Help Needed In Japan

Solcita

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Hi everybody!
I'm Sol and I'm an Argentinean female living in Yokohama, Japan.

My DH and I had moved to Japan 5 years ago with our 2 black cats: Ponyo (
and Chihiro (9 - deaf - cancer survivor).

A couple of months ago a feral cat came to our backyard and we started feeding "him" every single day. He was afraid of us but would accept food. We even lurded him to get into our house to eat and were already thinking in trapping him for TNR.
Suddenly 10 days ago "he" ended up being a "she" and came with 2 adorable kittens that we think were 6 weeks old at that time.
We put them a cage and changed the location of the dog house we already installed for her several weeks ago and they moved in.
We started feeding them all every day with kittens food and started the plans for TNR and socializing the kittens, but we started thinking she is pregnant again, so that put a stop to all our plans were trying to figure out what to do.

Once DH accepted the best for everybody was TNR mom (terminating pregnancy) and keeping the kittens indoors for socialization, they suddenly dissapeared.
They were playing like usual before breakfast time, and by breakfast time, they were gone... That was 4 days ago.
Mom came back that night to eat and run away... and she's been coming back two times per day to eat and go away as fast as possible. No signs of the kittens....

We have our hopes up that they will find their way back to us (and to the delicious kittens food and the toys they liked so much).

Mom still seems pregnant(ish?) so I think TNR is really needed. We are planning to take her to 公益財団法人 神奈川県動物愛護協会

THE QUESTION NOW:
- Should we keep waiting for the kittens to show up or do we trap her ASAP and release her? - Can the kittens manage themselves for 2 days while mom gets TNR?
Without mom to nurse them (she was nursering once a day when they were here as they were eating kittens food) will they search for other sources of food?

Thank you very much in advance for any guidance you can provide.
Sol
 

white shadow

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Hi Solcita and welcome to the forum !

There's someone who must hear about your arrival here: Norachan Norachan !

And....she will have some good advice for you, I'm sure!
.
 

surya

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If the kittens are six weeks old, I would wait a little longer to get her fixed. Leave food out, hopefully the kittens will show up and you can catch them. If you can bring the kittens inside and tame them so they can be adoptable, that would be the best thing for them.
 

Norachan

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Hi Solcita Solcita Thank you for trying to help these cats.

I think the best thing to do is get Mum spayed as soon as you can. There is a big feral cat population in Japan, as I'm sure you've noticed, so it's important not to allow too many kittens to be born.

I'm worried about the kittens suddenly disappearing like that before. I've known of feral kittens being taken by foxes and black kites at around that age.

Do you see birds like this in your area?

upload_2018-10-16_11-21-54.jpeg


If a kite took the kittens that could be why the mother is so scared of being out in the open.

If the kittens are still around they may still be close by. You could leave out food and water in the usual place for them while Mum is being TNR'd. Do you have a trail camera that you could set up near the food to check if the kittens come? Something like a GoPro would work if you don't have a trail camera.

Good luck, please keep us posted.
 

surya

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I would try and find the kittens before taking the mother. At six weeks they are very dependent on her for finding food and her protection. If you can't find them after a few weeks they may have been killed. It won't hurt to wait a few weeks to get the mom fixed. Many female cats that get fixed are a little bit pregnant. There is no perfect answer, I just hate to think of the babies out there, lost and crying for their mom, easy pickings for anything that might want to kill them. Even thought the kittens are old enough to eat solid food at six weeks, they may be relying on breast milk if they don't know where to find food. The mother will be in a lot of pain after being fixed. It is major surgery for the females and also it is very painful as their milk to dry up. So she will need time to recover. The vet where I get my girl cats fixed keeps them for a week.
 
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BlueJay

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I read on another thread that if the kittens try to nurse shortly after surgery it can cause the insicion site to open up, and that can cause lots of problems. I would wait a couple weeks.
 

surya

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I hope you can catch the babies. Good luck, thanks for taking care of them.
 

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I was in a similar situation out here in LA...there are now coyotes in most urban areas. While I was in the process of trapping a mom and kittens, one of the kittens was more than likely taken by a coyote. Suddenly no cats anywhere for a few days, and no kittens, but they eventually did reappear.
 
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Solcita

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Thank you everybody for your replies.

Norachan, we live in Yokohama and we live in rather hilly side and with lots of tress, but we do not have black kites or foxes here. We do have tanuki and araigumas though. And they come through our backyard rather normally, but when the kittens and cat mama moved in, they all dissapeard. One night when they were playing on the side, an araiguma came from the back and we scared him away.

We have survailance cameras outside, so that's why how we know it's mama coming to eat when we are not around, or during the nights. We also know that when they left they were not in distress, they were simply playing as usual, and then while playing one of the kittens walked to the house next door and the other two followed and never came back.

Regarding TNR mom before or keep waiting for the kittens to appear: last night we came back home late. By that time Mama ate the remaining breakfast of dry food left for her during the day. We figured, if she is close by she will hear us and will come soon for dinner. Well, she didn't, she came like 2 hours later. So I am not sure how far or close she is staying with her kittens. And she is super smart and comes and goes from different places all the time, so it's impossible to tell where she is keeping her kittens.
This morning she came to have breakfast and stayed for one hour waiting for us to show up, but we woke up late and we missed her (the remaining food in her cage was eating by an araiguma during the night, we just checked) so she didn't eat here today, I hope she is getting food somewhere else (she is not desperately eating everything we provide and she normally leaves dry food) We are feeding her with kittens dry and wet food (one pouch of 70grs per day + 1 big cup of dry per day. Sometimes we also give her 1/3 can of adults wet food per day).
With all this in mind I will pick up any remaining food after dinner and I will put her breakfast at 6am, as she can come from 6 to 7ish... that way other animals cannot eat it during the night and we make sure we provide her food as she has a schedule... (when she was living with her kittens here she would have dry food all the time, and we would give wet food for breakfast and dinner when she asked for it - the kittens would normally wake me up between 6 - 630 demanding food and for dinner she would simply sit down on the window and stare at us until we would feed them)

What is the latest date I should wait to TNR mom?
44110886_1109744092546186_7445520953750061056_n.jpg
She looked like this yesterday... the idea of being pregnant came from us seeing her belly, so we don't know for sure. It could also be worms, right?
I want to avoid a new litter or it will never end but also thinking of Mini1 and Mini2 alone kills me... and I have been hoping for her to bring them back with no luck yet.
Also while living here the first few days when the kittens started eating food, she stopped nursing, although the last couple of days she would let them nurse before sleeping.
Also, during that time, we were starting to lure the kittens inside, and would play with them.... and she would take the chance to sleep or go away whenever we kept the kittens busy... so she didn't mind us with her kittens... so we think that maybe she moved them while looking for a new nest for her new litter? I'm surprised she didn't dumb them here and moved on... We always provided enough food for all of them, so it's not a matter of food competition with the kittens...

Yes, socializing kittens is also another goal. But we cannot foster her with a new litter + socialize the current 2 kittens in a separated space, as we also have 2 cats of our own, and we don't have enough space to have 3 separated sectors for all cats (that's what stopped all the plans when trying to figure out what to do).

THANK YOU ONCE AGAIN EVERYBODY FOR YOUR REPLIES! We felt we were losing our minds... and everybody is very down around here since the kittens are gone... I am still hopeful they will come back...!
 

Norachan

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Hi Solcita Solcita

We have tanuki, araiguma, anaguma and hakubishin around here. We live in the middle of a national park so there are lots of animals about. I've spoken to the Forestry Commission guy who I see regularly and he says that none of these animals will hunt or kill kittens that are bigger than a few weeks old. They may scavenge larger dead animals, but they won't hunt anything bigger that rats or mice. I hope that's good news for your kittens.

Mom doesn't look very pregnant to me. You can spay-abort right up to shortly before the kittens are due. The main reason we don't like to do this is that it's really hard to think of aborting kittens that are nearly full term. Much harder on the mother too.

How about waiting another week, hoping the kittens show up and keeping a close eye on Mom to see if she seems to be getting any bigger?

She won't start nesting until about a week before her kittens are due, by which time she will obviously be pregnant.

She's a pretty girl. Got a long tail too, most of my Japanese cats only have a little bob-tail.

;)
 
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Solcita

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You have no idea how relieved I feel from reading that they are not predators.

I am hoping Kato (we named her like that when we thought she was a boy) is not pregnant and simply getting fat from eating regularly. After giving birth to her kittens she was rather thin, and after she moved in we realized the big belly... I will keep an eye to see if it gets bigger in the upcoming days.

Kato came back today to eat "breakfast" super hungry at around 5pm... and to my surprised she just showed up for dinner. She keeps coming and leaving from different places, even now crossing the street (which she never did before)... I hope this crazy cat bring her kittens back soon...

Thank you once again and I will keep updating!
 

1 bruce 1

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This is just a thought, probably not helpful but we've had ferals and semi-ferals here that have litters before we can manage a TNR. 9 times out of 10, once the kittens are old enough that Mama feels OK with leaving them for a few hours, she ignores most of the food given to her and goes out to hunt. It's probably instinct and nothing more driving her to feed her own family, and if the hunt isn't successful, she takes the hand out.
If she's showing up late to meals, I'm hoping this is just her being a good Mom and reverting back to her feline basic code of survival and kitten-rearing.
 
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Solcita

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UPDATE!!!!!!! We trapped all 3!!!

Yesterday Kato came to eat 5 times, which is super unusual (she normally comes only for breakfast and dinner), finding food always and me always eager to give her more.
This morning when we got up to set up breakfast she was outside WITH HER KITTENS who were crying for food. We gave them food and then they LEFT, leaving us confused... but they came back a couple of hours later, and we didn't hesitate and once all 3 of them were inside the cage we trapped them!

We covered with a blanket and they are already moved indoors (inside the cage and covered with the blanket) in our storage room. Mom is hissing a little bit and kittens cry from time to time, but they are not crazy aggressive as we expected.

They ate a lot today, so we don't need ot disturb them until late tonight to feed them again.

The moment we saw her kittens this morning we asked for an appointment to neuter her, and we got it for TUESDAY morning, and waiting to see if they get any cancellations before that.

The 3 are sharing a home made cage of 80cm x 40cm x 40cm. I hope it's not too small for the 4 days. When we bring them in, mom will stay for the night and the kittens will come back with us after their check up in the carrier.
Mom will come back the next morning and stay in the cage until we release her back. The kittens will stay indoors with us for socialization.

ANY ADVICES WILL BE SUPER HIGHLY APPRECIATED!!!!!!!!
 

Norachan

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Yay, that's fantastic!

I'll post again in an hour or so with some advice, just wanted to let you know how pleased I am that the whole family are safe.

:woo:
 

Norachan

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OK, I'm back.

So, is the storage room inside your house? And you have a spare room that you could turn into a kitten room while you are socialising the kittens? If they are only 6 or 7 weeks old it will be easy enough to get them ready for adoption, but they will benefit from having time out of the cage so you can play with and handle them.

I've found Feliway to be really useful when dealing with feral or skittish cats.

FELIWAY CLASSIC Diffuser

I have a diffuser in the room and I squirt the spray onto my hands before handling the kittens. It mimics the hormone a mother cat gives off so helps to keep the cats calm. It will help your resident cats accept the new kittens in the house too. Even if they don't meet face to face they will know the kittens are there.

You can buy Feliway on Rakuten. Vets often sell it too.

It would be better if you could keep Mom indoors for at least 24 hours, longer if she isn't too freaked out. Ask your vet what they'll be giving her to help get over her spay. A long lasting antibiotic injection is common. Some vets give a long lasting pain killing injection, others give pain killing meds to mix with food.

If she's got meds you need to put in her food you should keep her indoors until she's had the full course.

I recommend keeping her separate from the kittens while she recovers. You could either keep her in the store room and the kittens in the cage or get another crate.

Does your vet have crates they can lend you? If not it would be worthwhile investing in one. I got this one from Kuroganiya, it cost about 10,000 yen.


This article might be worth reading if you're going to have new kittens at home.

Kitten Proofing Your Home: 13 Practical Tips

What's your plan for finding new homes? Are you going to do that yourself or is there a shelter that will help you?
 

surya

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Yay, I'm so happy you have the kittens inside where they are safe! There are some good videos on youtube on socializing kittens. Do a search for kitten school. I found them very helpful.
 
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Solcita

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Hi everybody! Thank you for your words!

Norachan, the storage room it's actually like a 3-tatami room inside our house, but it's right next to the toilet, in the same hall than the genkan... it looks like a walk-in closet, that way we can have all cats separated.
No cats allowed in the kitchen now, so that's neutral zone. Our resident cats will stay in the livingroom (where they eat)/ofuro (where they have their toilets)/bedroom (where they sleep). So basically we only limited the running around space a little bit.
Kato+Kittens are inside the cage in the storage room until she is neutered.

About FELIWAY, I've been reading about it for a while as our oldest cat tend to hate our youngest one, but we always thought it was super expensive without really knowing if it'd work. The situation was never bad enough to buy something so fancy to try... and now DH is worried about the upcoming expenses with the kittens and prefers to keep providing good food than buying something "fancy" (we are originally from Latin America where there are not so many resources like here so we are overwhelmed by the amount of choices we have here -and their cost!)
Yesterday I opened one of those powder bags the scratchers bring for the first time ( I always ignored it) and both our cats went crazy about it, they looked super high... so this morning we used some of that in the kittens toys. They are not feeling like playing at all, but when we touched Kato with it she seemed to relax... should I use that powder in the blanket covering the cage?

QUESTION: this morning Kato and the kittens were to our surprise, laying down right on the cage's door where we removed part of the blanket. They moved the toilet to the back.
So I guess we have to take the blanket out? We now left some of the back covered so they feel they have a space to hide... but as they came to the front I thought they might want to have more open view?

Plans from now:
1) Mom has the appointment on Tuesday morning in the rescue center and she spends the night. From that moment on she will be in a separated cage.
She comes back the next morning and stays indoors, the vet already warned us she has to stay in our care for 24 hours (so I guess they give her the shot medication) and later released in our backyard where she still has her dog house and will be fed by us. I know she will remain upset for at least a week knowing her kittens are inside, right?
QUESTION: once she comes back from the rescue center, is it better to keep her in a separate room from the kittens? Meaning, she doesn't go back to be with them from the moment they are separated at the rescue center? (only available place would be the genkan, right next to the kittens rooms so she will still be able to hear them... we "could" place her in the ofuro in order to separate them more, if it's only 24 hours I guess we can move one of the toilets to the laundry room without disrupting our cats' lives so much?

2) Kittens: they go to the rescue center with mom on Tuesday, get blood test for FIV, dewormed, etc... and come back with us right away. From then on we can start socializating them. We are trying to play with them as before, but they are super afraid and always hiding behind Kato. And if the kittens are too afraid, Kato gets upset, so we are trying to disturb them as little as possible right now. We do not feel we can socialize them with Kato there sadly.
After coming back from the rescue center we can
a) Put them in a big home-made cage like the one they are using now (we still have lots of materials left to build a new one -they are parts of our old catio)...
b) Put them in a crater (we have one and they actually liked it, before we built the cage they would use it to eat).

As they will be in their own room, we can leave the cage/crater open for them to explore.
We also already bought them their own toilet, but not in used right now while currently in the cage with Kato. We did place a temporary toilet and they all used it last night! :) I was honestly surprised, didn't know what to expect.
I will read your guide on how to kitten proofing that room so we can relax while they are there alone (and we just replaced our broken petcam, and a new one will arrive today, so we can keep an eye without actually being on them all the time).

Regarding finding homes for the kittens: I plan to ask help from JapanCatNetwork, they are my original source of information and where I got all the help before coming here. My idea was to put them up for adoption in their Facebook group and ask them to help me handle any applications as they have some sort of form to apply... I already update the daily situation with the kittens there, share videos of the trapping, etc... so people in that group already "know" them.
Any other idea in mind? Any recommendations?

In the meantime: our cats seemed unawared of the fact that the cat family is indoors now... they didn't even noticed that we limit their territory... but this morning their toilet was a mess so I had to bring it in to the ofuro to clean it up and our youngest realized it... she came to look what I was doing... but so far so good, no attitude issues... the only chaotic moment is when I have to wake up at 6am to set up breakfast and she starts yelling like crazy demanding food...

Sorry for the looooooooooooooong post!!!!! And THANK YOU SO SO MUCH for your support!
 

surya

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I would think it would be better to keep her separate from the kittens when she comes back from her surgery. When she hear's the babies cry, I think it would upset her when she can not get to them. Just my speculation, maybe the vet would have a different suggestion. When you get around to taking some pictures, we would love to see them!
 
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Solcita

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Here they are now. They are using the litter perfectly fine.
Kato is a little bit upset ... She seems to tolerate my husband more so he is the one taking things in and out. IMG_20181020_093213.jpg IMG_20181020_093003.jpg

Mini 1 is the one on the left it is normally the more genki one. Mini 2 is more shy and afraid and always behind Kato. They used to play a lot with us when they were outside and we could pet them while playing as they wouldn't even know they were pet...
 
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