15 years of feeding them but not fixing them?

Sunday morning I went out with a couple other people about a feral cat colony near Toronto's Pearson Airport. The employees of the company where the cats had taken up home had said they have been feeding them for 15 years but it never accured to them to get the cats fixed to stop them from having kittens. I can't understand why that wouldn't come to mind after 15 years of several litters and more mouths to feed, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and think that they just weren't educated about the subject enough to know better. At least they were feeding them and built some shelters for the cats on the property, alot of places wouldn't. They agreed for us to go out and remove the cats, spay/neuter them and find homes for the kittens while the adults who are too set in their ways to ever live comfortably in a home will be placed at barns with a few being returned to the property as asked by some of the employees as they enjoy having the cats around. We've been told that some of the cats can even be picked up by some of the workers but of course when we got there they kept their distance from us but were clearly curious. Guess it was a case of "I don't know you so I don't trust you".

We found two seperate litters of kittens, a litter of 6(was 8 but two kittens found homes with employees) and a litter of 3. The litter of 3 were inside one of many large pipes, wet, muddy, gritty, and cold. The litter of 6 were inside one of the shelters warm, dry and sleeping in one giant pile of cuteness. We easily managed to get them into a carrier, it was the adults that were going to be trouble. They were around, watching us just out of touching distance, even when we opened food they remained out of reach but clearly wanted it bad enough to slowly creep over and grab a bite before ducking away from us before we could grab them. It was guessed that there were around 20 cats from what we saw while there, most of them calicos and torties pregnant or nursing. There were several older kittens there around 5 months old, but they kept their distance like the adults. One cat was missing an eye and the socket was bright red, surely it had a nasty infection there, another cat had a large cut on the side of it's face while others had runny eyes but other then that seemed in decent health, not too skinny at all, could be fatter but not bad all together, but I'm sure when winter comes they'll look worse.

I set a carrier down and put an open can of food inside to see if I could catch an adult, one nursing female, a black tuxedo who was the mother of one of the litters we had(we were told this) and a small black older kitten came up to the carrier, the nursing mom went inside while the black teen kitten remained outside, watching me carefully. I slowly moved closer and slammed the door shut, the black kitten darted away, and nursing mom of course went bonkers. I was unable to get the door locked for fear she'd grab my fingers as she lashed out with her claws at the door doing flips. Gary came over to help me, but as he got over and before we could ge tthe door locked she managed to squeeze herself out, Gary grabbed her to try adn get her back in and she gave him a good scolding for that. She then ran off to the ajoining property leaving Gary with a bloody finger.

Tina came back over as she had been on the other property trying to get some of the cats with a trap. She handed us the trap and we set it down, removing the carrier. Within minutes we had two cats in the trap, we packed them into the vehical with the kittens and headed to the vets. We'll be going back to lay down more traps for the other adults so all can be fixed and checked out, we would have loved to get the cat with the missing eye but it wasn't coming anywhere near us. Another time, hopefully.

I agreed to foster the litter of 3 and went to pick them up today from the vet. They are guessed to be around 4 weeks old, and have fleas. Of course they are too young to use any of the normal flea treatments on so I brought them home and before letting them into their room I gave them a bath in the kitchen sink with warm water adn dish soap. I'll be doing this every day for a few days until I'm assured the fleas are gone. One has an eye infection so has cream given twice daily to both eyes but otherwise they are healthy. Within seconds of being let loose in their room two of them were running around, playing and begging for attention. The other merely curled up in the cat basket and cried. He's the smallest kitten of the three and the one with the eye infection. I hoped he'd come around and a few hours later he did once he was and had some food in his belly. All three are running around, pouncing and begging for attention. We've named them from our favorite show, House M.D.

Drifter is completely frightened of them, and of course they follow the big lug around like ducklings do their mother. He then retreats to high ground where they can't reach him and watches them with a worried look. Reyna isn't fond of them but in time I know she will be, it just takes her a while to have that motherly instinct kick in and then you'll hardly ever see them apart. Bosco pretty much ignored them and stayed away from them. So it looks like they'll be great with other cats and dogs. They even tried to curl up beside Drifter for a nap but Drifter quickly and carefully jumped up and retreated.

All three are now eating and sleeping peacefully in their room. Dry, clean, and happy. I think I'll be holding off on finding them homes until they are a little older and will then have them posted up on MHS' website. This doesn't mean should someone be interested in them that I turn them away but I won't be actively looking for homes for them or letting them leave until they are at least 8 weeks old perferably 12 weeks but I wouldn't feel too bad at letting them go at 8 weeks. So if your interested or know someone who might be in one, two, or all three of them drop me a comment on here and I'll email you back about them.

Chase


Kutner


Wilson