Introduction to T(rap) N(euter) R(eturn)...Introduction to T(rap) N(euter) R(eturn) 1 My name is Nancy, and I am a member of the CCC. We are a group who formed to try to help resolve
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Presented by: The Community Cat Coalition (CCC) Introduction to T(rap) N(euter) R(eturn) 1
My name is Nancy, and I am a member of the CCC. We are a group who formed to try to help resolve the free roaming cat issues in our community, and our primary goal is teaching people how to do TNR
What is T-N-R?• Trap-Neuter-Return is a humane and effective approach for
community cats.
Alley Cat Allies
• Community cats are humanely trapped, spayed or neutered, vaccinated, and ear tipped (the universal symbol of a neutered and vaccinated cat), and then returned to their outdoor home.
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Who Can Do TNR?
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YOUCANDO
TNR!
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Presentation Notes
Clockwise starting far left – this man and his wife TNR’d 9 cats in their backyard – both mid 70’s, did trapping/holding pre-post surgery, transporting, recovery and release all by themselves. 44 cat trapping project, people in their 20’s through their 80’s participated Far left bottom – 75 yr old woman with severe arthritis both knees – set out to TNR by herself 25 cats – had help of 1 person, but did most by herself. Man with amputation one leg just below hip – did all but carry traps to the car, and his wife helped with that. 10 cats, tamed the kittens. Elderly woman couldn’t do the actual trapping, but helped by acclimating cats to traps, monitoring traps, worked WITH volunteers Kids! Involve now – can tame feral kittens, can learn – they are our future, teach now, help understand community responsibility.
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Today’s Focus – Simple trapping
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Presentation Notes
When you become involved in TNR, it can become complex as you deal with specific site issues or individual needs. The focus today is simply teaching the basics of how to trap – if you have questions at the end about specifics, we’re happy to answer them, or you can email us anytime. For an involved tutorial, contact [email protected] (contact info at the end of the slides) The cats in this slide were TNR’d last month – the woman feeding them started feeding 2 moms and babies, and fortunately realized she’d better act now to prevent more – she estimated 12-14 cats, and we TNR’d 10. She’s watching now for NET. These cats were all trapped in one afternoon, released the next day – the sooner you trap, the less cats there will be!
1. Assess the colony
2. Make a plan
3. Schedule appointments
4. Acclimate and trap cats
5. Pre-op holding of cats
TNR Process
6. Transport to/from clinic
7. Spay/neuter clinic
8. Post-op recovery
9. Release
10. Follow up and cleanup
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https://www.facebook.com/CommunityCatCoalitionWa/posts/501595259981806 is a link to a post about a first time trapping –with pictures and explanations of the whole process.
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Presentation Notes
So to begin, this is the standard process for effective TNR - we’ll go through each step during the presentation, but this one slide shows the entire process. I do want to say you are in a class listening to the process, and it may seem harder than it truly is – actually doing it goes much faster/easier than listening/watching!
#1 – Assess your site. How many cats 1 or 44? 1 or 2 cats will be very simple to trap, 10-20-44… you’ll want a little more than the basics! But for simple trapping, your first step is to know how many cats you need to trap. Part of assessing will also be where will you put the traps in order to have your best chance at trapping 100% of the cats (usually where you feed), and how feral are they (friendly = easier to trap)
Make a plan• How urgent is this?
– (i.e. injured cat, pregnant cats, weather)• When can you do it?
– When does the clinic have openings?– When can you get traps?
• Do you need help to do this? – Contact those you want to help you, involve them in the plan
• Decide:– How far in advance do you need to start?– Where will the cats be held prior to surgery?– Who will transport?– Where will the cats be held after surgery?
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Presentation Notes
#2 –You’ve assessed your site and now you really need to sit down and make a plan. This is the most critical part of your trapping process, as the mistake too many people make is to jump into trapping a cat and then think “now what do I do?” Decide if this is an urgent need or something that can wait, when can you get an appointment, traps, and if there are many cats do you need help? lactating cats, keep minimal amt of time; pregnant cats – trap asap. Where will you hold the cats before and after surgery, do you need help transporting them?
Schedule S/N appointments• Make appointments in advance
(before trapping)– Online appointments are
preferred method– To see if a date is available,
you have to enter all your data before you can see a drop down menu.
#3 – Once you know how many cats you need to trap, and how urgent this is, you can go on to Scheduling the appointments. 2 clinics in our area will do free spay/neuter (if ET), and all cats being ear tipped will get a free rabies vaccination as well. Extra services are available for extra fees, but are not mandatory. NOAH will take a single cat in a trap on standby any day they have a vet, usually 7 days a week; FCSNP has 10 standby appointments Sun-Wed. It is best to set up an appointment, but if you have an urgent need, these spots are available for that reason. Trapping a colony should be a scheduled time, but “leftovers” can be brought in on standby in the days following. And, if you are trapping a large number of cats, you may do best to call the clinic to get the appointments as it can be difficult to see how many openings are available on a given day in the online scheduler.
Trapping – Arrange for Traps
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Presentation Notes
#4 – Now you know how many cats you have, and when your appointments are – at this point you can arrange to borrow traps 1 week ahead of time – the best success will happen when you have at least 3-4 days to acclimate the cats to the traps by keeping them open with bungees or zip ties, feeding the cats in the traps to get them used to going in without being trapped. This can dramatically increase your chances of getting them all – and even a single cat will be easier to deal with if acclimated. Our suggestion is to acclimate for a week in advance, if the location is safe to leave a trap. The CCC has traps to loan, and we have a list of places to rent/loan/purchase traps. Make sure you have enough traps – 1 per cat. Other points to consider are hoow feral are they, more feral means may take longer. Is it safe to leave traps (not stolen). If it is urgent, you may not be acclimating. Set up traps where cats normally feed; if large number, need to spread out. Kittens, easy to trap at same site, adults may need to be spread out. Feed canned food/tuna in the trap, start at the front of the trap and move the food to the back within a few days. This picture shows 7 traps in a barn where the owner was positive there were 7 – mom dad and 5 babies. She was right! And, we got them all
Pre-Trapping – Acclimate if possible
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Bungee or Zip Tie 1 week if possible
Cover the traps
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Presentation Notes
#4 This shows the traps as they appear without covers, but you really want to cover them while acclimating if at all possible.
TrappingHow long to hold food?
Completely cover the trap once the cat is caught
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Presentation Notes
#4 cont – After acclimating, you are ready to trap. How many cats – large number may take 2 days, 1-2 cats may only be the evening before – depends too on time of day you feed normally. Don’t feed the night before (if acclimating, don’t hold food longer than 24 hours). Remove the bungees/zip ties, bait the traps, trap the cats. Once trap is sprung, cover it immediately .If other cats are near the traps, wait. Cats may panic and thrash about in closed trap. NEVER open the trap! Cover the trap and the cat should calm down. Once a cat is trapped, secure the trap with zip ties or bungee cords. Keep the trap fully covered at all times.
Holding before surgeryKeep Warm, Quiet, Dry, and Covered at all times.
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Presentation Notes
#5 – Preop holding. Prepare holding area ahead of time – warm, quiet, dry. If cold floor – use cardboard, other insulation; the picture shows cardboard, old sleeping bag/blankets, pee pads (you can use tarps/garbage bags and absorbent material, the goal is insulate, but we use moisture barriers to prevent ruining what’s underneath. Keep cats covered at all times, zip tie both ends – tell how a cat can escape if not tied. If trapping late in the day, no food/water; early in day, give canned food/mix w/water;
TransportingNO open bed trucks – must be covered transport!
Tarp/protect interior of vehicle Okay to stack – prevent escapes!
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Presenter
Presentation Notes
#6 Transporting.Be sure to place a barrier - tarps or heavy plastic bags on the floor of the vehicle you are using as the cats may urinate/defecate out of fear. You can stack traps on top of each other, but make sure to secure them and put plastic on top of the traps and an absorbent material on top of the plastic so the animal below is not soiled. Do NOT transport cats in the open bed of a truck- They need to be in a confined space.
RecoveryTrap divider
A trap divider may be used to contain the cat inside of the trap while adding
food or replacing soiled bedding.ALWAYS place the divider through the side of the trap, NEVER from the top
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Warm,dry,quiet and covered at all times.
Food – canned mixed w/water, 6-7 pm
Release – 24-48 hours• Same night for new mom cats• Longer for late term pregnant • Injured/ill cat – vet recommendation
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Presentation Notes
#7 – Recovery. Bring the cats into the area you have prepared. ASSESS the cat’s wakefulness before placing food/water – if still under anesthesia, they may sit/lay in the food, if too groggy may put their face in the food/aspirate Put a can of moist food mixed with a small amount of water in each cage. Keep the cats covered at all times. When to release the cats back into their territory depends on what was done. Release for a lactating mom cat will be different than a pregnant spay or a male cat.
Release
Open traps so that the cat is running into a familiar safe hiding place.
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Presentation Notes
9 – Release. Release the cats into the same area where they were trapped, and work to point the traps into a safe zone – the cats will be able to hide and not have to run/stress the incisions (females more important on this).
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Assessing the site – Earl’s
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Presentation Notes
Just a quick visual review of what we have just done. Here is a site done this fall, where we helped a man TNR 9 cats. The top shows an overall view of the site, but the cats primarily congregated at that old truck, were fed under the truck. In assessing it, we saw how friendly they were, and as Earl had named them all, we had a good idea he really did know how many there were. They were semi-feral, coming within a few feet us of but spooky, and definitely not touchable.
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Acclimating to the traps – Earl’s
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Presentation Notes
Because these cats fed side by side and always in one spot, we set up the traps in front of their feeding area and side by side. When placing side by side, keep separated so don’t accidently shut traps if cat is thrashing. If the cats are very feral and appear in multiple locations, traps can be spread out. Trapping day – we simply removed the bungees and trapped the cats quickly.
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Release – Earl’s’
My release video didn’t capture! But the picture below was taken within 2 minutes after release – cats who are comfortable in their home
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This was taken the day after release – and this says it all. People worry about the cats being too stressed by the whole TNR process, they will run off, they won’t return, they won’t do well… this boy was stretched out sunbathing
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Success at Earl’s! (plus 2 indoor kittens from this colony not pictured – Earl was able to catch them while they were still tiny) Total – 4 boys, 5 girls
Little RC, about 9 weeks old, is in foster and will be socialized and adopted out. This is a huge benefit of TNR – getting the kittens out before they become feral.
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Success at Harvey’s!7 boys & 3 girls -no more babies! (we hope)
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Presentation Notes
These were cats across the road from Earl’s, and I left this slide to show the number of male/female; it is actually pretty common to have more males than females, and a single unaltered female will be attracting intact toms from miles around. But while people say you need to spay the females, it is just as important to get the boys neutered. Sadly the males tend to fight, spray, and spread disease through the fighting/biting that goes on; most of the complaints about free roaming cats are because of the nuisance factors from the males. So – TNR them all!
Examples of Traps/Trap Demo
TruCatch
Trap divider (“fork”)
Havahart Tomahawk
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Presenter
Presentation Notes
#4 cont – These are some examples of the most common traps - Not shown – the drop trap. If you have a difficult to trap cat, contact us!
Trapped when they were 2 weeks old, fostered with their mom for the next month. Mom was TNR’d, but the 4 kittens were fostered, socialized, and readied for adoption.
These 2 are at our booth in the trade show today – we like to give people the living examples of why this is important, and how we can all save lives
