Only One More Left...

[e_l_green]

The little calico kitten is the last un-TNR'ed cat in the neighborhood. Caught the last full grown female yesterday, she's in my garage sleeping off the anesthesia from her spay surgery right now. Someone suggested that I post this as a good example of how to trap using a drop trap, and how to transfer a cat to a live trap from the drop trap. Note that the gray-and-white cat seen at the beginning of the video was TNR'ed last week, and was back at the under-trap feeding station within 30 minutes of being released (he may not have physical balls anymore, but certainly has metaphorical ones that clang!). Thus why I was not concerned about scaring him by dropping the trap onto the white cat. Also, for the full size tomcats I usually connect the live trap to the drop trap using the provided springs. For smaller cats I don't bother because that makes it harder to use the gate (I usually end up using the transfer fork instead to keep the cat from going back into the live trap until I can disconnect the springs and put the gate down), I just straddle the live trap and hold it tight with my legs and feet.

Note that the cinderblock with a blue cable going into it hides/protects a video surveillance camera aimed at the food bowl and when you see me put my phone in my pocket, it's because I was watching the camera using its manufacturers' app to know when to pull the cord to drop the trap. I never actually set eyes on the cat until I slid open the patio door. However, the old fashioned way of peeking out the blinds works too, it's just tedious and the phone app lets me do other things while waiting for the cat I'm interested in to go under the drop trap.

 

[shadowsrescue]

That is awesome!! Thank you so much for sharing the video. One more to go!!

 

[Cat20mom]

Wow! That is awesome! You make it look so easy! So, it looks like you stood inside and pulled the cord from there, right? I like how you threaded it through the cinder block. Do you have to use a pretty thick cord? Have you ever used the drop trap with a regular spring trap as the transfer trap? I would think that could work too, but not sure. I know the transfer trap with the sliding door is about $80 and I already have one of the spring traps. Thanks for sharing! I have 3 more to go and am considering buying a drop trap. Once I catch mine, I can donate it to our local TNR group.

 

[Cat20mom]

Do you-or anyone else-know of somewhere I can buy a drop trap that might be less than $130? That's all I have found so far. I didn't realize they cost so much!

 

[Avery]

Thanks for posting that! It is great to see a drop trap in action! I Googled "drop trap for cats" and found a few for around $105. Maybe a local rescue group would have one to loan.

 

[e_l_green]

I caught my first five cats using a borrowed drop trap and borrowed live traps after the cats simply refused to go into the live trap I'd bought. The live trap you see here is borrowed, my live trap is large and heavy and the lady who helps me by carrying the cats to the vet during the daytime when I have to work has trouble carrying it. I eventually bought a drop trap myself because I felt bad about hogging the group's drop trap so much, this was cat #19. See if you can get in touch with your local cat lady underground via your local TNR support group about borrowing a drop trap if you only have three cats to trap. Also note that you can *build* a box trap if you don't want to pay for the folding features of the purchased ones. They're really easy to build, you can even make one out of a large plastic tub with some bricks tied to it to give it some weight, plus a stick. The hardest part is creating the sliding door needed to transfer the cat.

I would suggest buying a transfer cage if you have a spring trap and want to transfer a cat. Every spring trap I've seen has a spring door that sticks out the front of the trap and you can't really use that spring door to transfer a cat because of that. Note that I'm using the sliding rear door on the Tru-Catch plus the sliding guillotine door on the drop trap. Also note that I usually attach the two traps together with the springs intended for that purpose (use bungee cords and eyelets to do this with a home-made drop trap) unless the cat in question is relatively small and I'm confident she won't ricochet the whole live trap away from the drop trap.

Regarding the twine, yes it is a heavy duty twine, and it does abrade with use. From time to time I cut off the abraded part and tie the caribiner higher up the string onto an unabraded part. As for where it's going, the patio door is the exit to my dining room, and the ball of twine sits on my dining room table prevented from unraveling by a book sat upon it. I'm usually in my home office, about a dozen steps from the dining room table, and go over to the dining room table with my phone app in hand when I see a cat I'm interested in on the security camera monitors. The view in this video is from the security camera that monitors the patio entryway and the windows on this side of the house, and is more of a bird's eye view compared to the camera I have hidden in the cinder block, which is a cat's eye view that makes it really easy for me to check the ears to see if this is a cat I've TNR'ed before. I do know most of my ferals by sight (and named them, this one is Snowy, for example, to be differentiated from Ghost, a much larger male white cat), but there are some that are basically identical (there are two lean sleek black cats, for example) that are otherwise hard to tell "is that one I trapped, or not?" if I've only caught one of them and am trying to trap the other.

 

[Cat20mom]

Thanks for all the info! The only TNR group that is close to me at all just started up 8 months ago and they don't have a drop trap-already asked. If I buy one, I'm going to donate it to them when I'm done. My trapping all takes place in my backyard, in the grass. Are these traps heavy enough that my big tom won't get out from under it before I run to the trap? The spring live trap I have has no door that sticks out the front. With the spring door in place, it is essentially suspended on the inside top of the trap until the cat steps on the plate, dropping it closed. As long as the openings of both traps are the same size, it might work. I was just wondering if anyone had done it this way. Bungee cords to attach the two traps together is a good idea though. I did find a Tomahawk drop trap online for $80 from a site called PricePoper.com. That's more in my range!