We have TNR over 50 cats since buying this house in '99. We actually had to
buy our own trap, as it was easier than repeatedly trekking over to the local nonprofit and hoping they hadn't loaned them all out.
Our toughest case was the elusive Mama Grey. She had half a dozen litters before we could get her. She was not much more than a runt herself, but surely had spirit. I saw her climbing and leaping from a chain link fence one day with a full grown squirrel in her mouth. It equaled her in size.
We finally trapped her in the garage one day and literally had to starve her into the trap. She held out almost 4 days before going in for the food. We had her fixed and she then disappeared within a month. Kind of sad.
Below is a pic from 11/26/09, at the height of the madness. We had no Thanksgiving plans that year, so we bought ten cans of mackerel and gave the pride a Thanksgiving feast. About 80% of this group was feral, but conditioned to feeding. That year, I believe, we got the last breeder fixed and have slowly dwindled in population from attrition.
We went through about 60 pounds of dry food every two weeks at that time. Needless to say, no bug/lizard/bird is safe in my back yard.
Currently, there are about a dozen in or around the house, all fixed, fat freeloaders. The worst problem we now have is the random possum/racoon through the cat door in the wee hours. Who'd of thought that the crazy cat lady in my block would end up being me, the fat, hairy biker guy...
Jay
The fat, orange cat was Kitana. She was the ONE cat we actually owned, who moved there with us. The rest just kinda showed up.
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