Cat Tipping
On this, the fifth birthday of our oldest cat, Ginger, I send you all a reminder to spay and neuter your pets. We live in a college town. Turns out baby adults are not THAT responsible yet. Maybe I shouldn’t point blame at them but it does seem to explain why we have a bigger feral cat problem near the university than the rest of the town. I wouldn’t know this if we didn’t have three feral cats dropped off at our property last month or so.
Meet Zero (grey point), Professor Glitter Sparkle (tabby) and Princess Rainbow Ninja (black), our new cats.
It started on Christmas day when I saw this super pretty grey point kitty walking the grass-line in our field. The neighbors have a shop cat of the exact same breed named Celeste. They don’t generally let her out of the shop because her job is mice control and coyotes are ruthless around here, especially this time of year. So I texted them that I saw her. They sent back a picture of their Celeste cuddled up cozy in their shop. I tried to call the new kitty who bolted. We didn’t see her again for a week.
When I saw her the next time she bolted in front of my car. I figured out that if she is going to linger here in the cold the least I could do was give her some kibble to help her get through winter. I had to set it somewhere the mice couldn’t easily get to it but somewhere she would see it. I decided on top of the cabinet in the barn would work well. It took her three days to find the food but as soon as she did I started feeding her daily. I never ever saw her (thus her name, Zero). Then one day, I filled the food dish, turned back to home, a few steps in I realized I forgot to grab something from the barn for Hazel so I walked back in the door only to see THREE cats jump off the cabinet!
My theory
Zero is a long hair and the other two are short haired. They are all small but from a distance and in the quick flash as they skiddadled, the two looked like kittens to Zero being the mom. I am not totally convinced this is not the case but now that I have coaxed them in a little closer they all look really small. I am 50/50 whether its a momma and two babies or whether its just three babies.
I was determined to get them help
The kids and I set to befriending them. We’d feed them and wait, sitting with them while they ate. They have yet to enjoy being within 10 feet of us but they don’t run away quite as fast either. Except Zero, who we almost never see still.
After a couple weeks of trying to befriend, Pickles got sick. He had goopy eyes and was sneezy so I figured it was the new cats (who Pickles and Ginger interact with just fine). I had a new incentive to get them caught and health checked. Right about this time is when I noticed they MIGHT have docked ears. I had just assumed this was frostbite. However, to that point, the winter had not been that harsh. As I got closer I could definitely tell that the grey one (Glitter) definitely had a clipped left ear. I couldn’t quite tell on Ninja but her right ear seemed to also have a flat top if she held it a certain way. I still couldn’t get close enough.
Ear Tipping
I remember hearing of ear tipping as a way to limit the feral cat population in areas where it was a problem. Basically, they catch, spay/neuter, vaccinate and release them back where they came from. In order to tell that they had already be caught and released, they clip one of their ears. It didn’t make sense though because they had different ears clipped. I had assumed they would be the same ear.
The kids and I went down to the humane society to see if the program was happening up here, we assumed they would probably be who was doing it. It turns out feral cats are a pretty big problem here and they do have a TNR (Trap Neuter Release) Program. There is only one clinic who participates so I gave them a ring to see if they recognized the trio. They all but laughed at me because ‘They do several hundred TNRs a month, there was no way to remember each one’. I had no idea!
They DID tell me that different ears are tipped depending on the sex. The cats right ear would be tipped if it was a girl and the cats left ear was tipped on a boy. That is how we know Zero is a girl, Princess Rainbow Ninja is a girl and Professor Glitter Sparkle is a boy.
Pickles started feeling better in a few days, too.
It’s been super cold
It was -6* last night. I have set them up with a nice insulated area to cuddle up at night but it’s freaking cold. I have spent a lot of time worrying about them. I missed being on time one day for their feeding (we were in town) and they quickly let me know as soon as I made it home by crawling up on the deck at the tiny house. Now I can call them to the come eat and they will run up from the barn to me at the house. Which has made things a lot easier for me! I still can’t be outside too close with them but they don’t mind me watching them so long as I am behind a window.
These guys are welcome to stay as long as they want and we’ll keep feeding them groceries and coaxing them to become inside/outside cats. I worry about those other ‘several hundred’ feral cats having to survive these winters on their own though. So, especially college kids, spay and neuter your cats and dogs, please! The humane society helps with this if there are financial barriers.
