Ideas for safely moving feral kittens across a busy street?

moxiewild

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So, I take care of a feral colony in a wooded and mostly enclosed (by fencing) area that’s next to street that’s fairly busy during the day. We’ve lost about 5 cats there in the past year from being hit by cars when they venture out :(

We noticed a newcomer, Meatloaf, coming around the past couple months, and eventually realized she wasn’t living with the colony, but would show up to eat.

So we started heading over at non-feeding times to see if we could see where she’s coming from, and eventually spotted her on the opposite side of the street across from our colony, with two small kittens.

They appear to be staying in various neighbors yards, so any time we approach them, they flee into the gated yards.

Well, the kittens are about 12 or so weeks now, and Meatloaf has decided she’s done mothering, so has officially moved over to our colony on her own.

But the kittens haven’t followed, and I don’t know why. We’ve seen them visit the colony twice before, so they know it’s more private and food and shelter is there. Once, they were even playing with some of the kittens in our colony who are about a month or two older.

As the situation is, it’s incredibly difficult to trap them where they are. I keep hoping they’ll move to our colony site, but they just haven’t. I’ve started leaving some dry food on top of the fence (it has occasional brick “posts” they can stand on), and they seem to be quite hungry when I do that.

I just don’t know how to go about this.

I can’t safely lure them by slowly moving food across a busy road. There is no safe place for them between where they are, and where my colony starts - it’s either busy road, or heavily used sidewalks where people walk their dogs.

The second option would be trying to trap them, but we haven’t had much luck so far. And if we did trap them, we’d be releasing them in an essentially unfamiliar territory.

If they were to be too disoriented, they could run through the woods, only to find themselves on an interstate highway.

Or, they could know where they are, and then shoot right back over the busy street to where they are now.

I’m just not sure what the heck to do about this. I just want them to be in the woods where it’s much safer for them, as I’ve seen them have to run from people’s dogs a few times now, and we’ve also caught them playing in the street at night (which is when the cars here are much more likely to speed down this road since it’s much less busy then).

Any ideas?
 

fionasmom

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I have relocated feral kittens, my avatar being one, but it was doing across backyards in a relatively safe area with the neighbors aware of what I was doing. I see your points about the dangers. Food works, little by little, but then you will come to the highway. Can you trap and find any placement for them, even using local social media since it is only 2 kittens?
 

Furballsmom

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I was already half asleep last night, and the only possible option I could come up with popped into my brain, which is what the previous two posters have mentioned of trapping them and bringing them inside.
 
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moxiewild

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The only other option that comes to my mind for those two kittens is, once you trapped them, you put them up for an adoption. This way they would be safe from all dangers.
I, too, think that they would go back where they come from if you relocate them in your colony.
Sorry for the super late reply, things have been really busy.

this would, of course, be the preferable option, but it is absolutely not in the cards.

We are at max capacity here and don’t have the time or space to socialize them. And because they are older kittens and still feral, rescues and shelters won’t take them either (other than to euthanize).

There also appears to be an adult feral cat hanging out with them now too.
 
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moxiewild

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I have relocated feral kittens, my avatar being one, but it was doing across backyards in a relatively safe area with the neighbors aware of what I was doing. I see your points about the dangers. Food works, little by little, but then you will come to the highway. Can you trap and find any placement for them, even using local social media since it is only 2 kittens?
Nope. They’re too old and too feral. :/

The highway is quite a ways away - I think they would be far more likely to go back to the yards they are in right now rather than run all the way to the highway. But, you know, there’s always that risk. They could also get lost elsewhere if they dart too far into the woods.

I just don’t know what to do with these guys. There are no good options.

I don’t know why their mom never taught them to go with her for food once they were older, especially since she officially moved into our colony the moment she was independent of them.

Right now it just looks like I either have to return them back into the two yards they seem to stay in after they’re neutered (which in itself would mean releasing them on the sidewalk right next to the busy street since I can’t access the yards), or at least try to release them in the colony and hope that, at worst, they’ll just return to their yards.

Perhaps they would stick around once they recognized their mom, and if we released them at feeding time while they were hungry after we set out the same familiar food we’ve been feeding them on the fence. Maybe then they might be encouraged to stay put.

This colony has always been incredibly accepting of newcomers too, so I don’t think they would chase them off.

We need to make a decision quickly because eventually someone is going to catch on that we’re leaving food on their and/or the neighborhood fence. We’re already in very hot water with the neighbors closest to our colony, so we need to stay under the radar as much as possible with the rest of the neighbors (we already specifically feed at 4-5AM just to avoid drawing attention to ourselves and the colony).

Also, one of the yards they currently stay in (and were raised in) is apparently newly vacant and for lease. So if either the eventual new tenants or landlord doesn’t want the cats there, that could be trouble. The yard next to that one that they also sometimes stay in has at least one big dog that’s frequently out and chases them up the fence too :(

I just don’t know what to do, but I have to figure something out soon.
 
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Norachan

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It seems like a bit of a gamble whatever you do. I think the only way you could guarantee that the kittens stay safely in the woods is to contain them there for a few days. I know in your situation that is probably impossible. Are the woods dense enough to leave a crate there for a day or two? Or is that just too risky?
 

Alldara

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The other option I can think of is if there's any kind of rescue outside your area that would be willing to travel to help you. For example, to meet you halfway to somewhere.

Or someone who needs new barn cats who is willing to take them. If caught in a place that isn't safe, and too feral to adopt out, the rescue we got Magnus and Calcifer from has local farmers they are partnered with for barn cat colonies.

You could post on local groups for this, and they would basically just need to have a garage or something the cats could stay in during recovery.
 
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