Stray Cats - TNR (Trap-Neuter-Return) Programme and re-homing young kittens

Jo from Eyrewell Forest

Hi everyone - sorry about the very long message - I am not sure if any of you have this issue but we seem to have a quite a few stray cats around us - either dumped, feral or maybe some of you have pet or barn cats that are un-neutered. We don't have our own pet cats at the moment but when we have we always put a safe detaching collar on ours so they are easily identified as pets - this situation has reinforced for me how important that is.
Rather than ignore the issue and hope it goes away we have started to try to remedy it and would love to see our street free of a stray cat population explosion.
The ones we have seen and captured seem to be in really good condition and surviving well (sorry if you one day find you unneutered pet has been desexed - but shame on you!). In December we saw a mother with 5 kittens - so far we have been unable to catch these but unless we do something about the situation, populations can easily become out of control. Mothers can become pregnant again within a short time from giving birth. Female cats can first go on heat as young as 4-5 months of age, when they are still kittens themselves. Female cats can have 2-3 litters per year, with an average of 3-5 kittens per litter. So you can see how one or a few stray cats can quickly end up to be many. Kittens can be saved and found homes if they are very small but if they become teenagers they are unable to be tamed.

So far we have caught 2 very healthy un-neutered (now neutered) large male cats, (we did catch one handsome ginger tabby twice),and one hedgehog but we are persevering. Both cats have been neutered and returned to where they came from but no more baby making for them.

I didn't know this, but the universal sign of a neutered stray is to have the Left ear tipped - it is just the very tip so can be hard to spot - it also helps if you trap one to make sure you haven't already caught it before.

We bought our own cage for around $60 and have been working with Cat Rescue Christchurch who have loaned us a second cage. They offer a desexing service for people who are finding and / or feeding unsocial stray cats through their TNR (Trap-Neuter-Return) Programme. They also take on kittens under 8 weeks to socialise and rehome.

Cat Rescue is a no-kill organisation and Trap Neuter Return is the no-kill way of controlling stray cat numbers. The neutered strays do really well if returned to their home environment.

We love our bird population and still have plenty around us but we are also animal lovers and want to do the best for all of the creatures that we share our beautiful home with. The up side is that we have noticed the mouse and rat population has declined which is good.

We understand that many farmers may have a hard nosed attitude towards this kind of thing but if we ignore the situation it it wont go away, we will just start to see a cat population boom with sick unhealthy animals everywhere.If they are un-neutered they will fight with your pets you may have some vet bills to deal with too.

If you want to help take a look at Cat Rescue's website

catrescue.org.nz... - you can only contact them by email.

I tend to put the traps out on a Sunday and drop the cats to the vet in Linwood that morning and pick them up to release again the next day. Cat Rescue pay for the neutering but we make donations for their assistance when we can.They are amazing but very over worked and under appreciated so please be patient with them. They must contact the vet for you and I always contact them when I catch a cat to make sure the vet can fit them in that day.

Feel free to send me a message if you want and help or advice - it is a bit of a distance to the vet but a very satisfying feeling when you do the right thing and release them again.