Feral Kitten #1: The First Traps

A few years ago, my daughter spotted a calico kitten in our front yard.

"Mommy, Mommy! A kitten is in our yard! Come and look!"

I came and saw it, but as soon as I looked, it was gone. I rushed to the kitchen to open a can of tuna fish, and I placed it under a bush and left it there for the night. The next morning, it had been eaten.

In a few days, that kitten was living under our wooden deck in the back yard (our deck was raised up about 8 inches, so it provided a shelter for all kinds of small animals at various times).

We fed that kitten for a few days, but it became apparent that this kitten was a stray. Since it was cold outside, I decided I needed to trap it. I would worry about finding it a home later (yeah, you know where this is going!).

We set a booby trap on the top of the deck. It was a large overturned box tilted up by a large stick. I strung some fishing line from the bottom of the stick and pulled the line into my house, so that I could jerk the stick from inside my house and have the box trap the kitten. I also taped a 5# weight plate on top of the box, just in case the kitten tried to get out from under the box.

It worked! I trapped the kitten! But er, uh... I didn't think about how to get the kitten out from under the box once I trapped it! Big mistake. We so much as tilted the box and that kitten shot out so fast! There was no catching it. Back to square one.

I went to the hardware store to get a humane trap. I got one that I thought would be appropriate - a little larger than the size of a kitten. This was another mistake - I got a humane trap for a squirrel! I should have bought a larger one. Hey, how was I to know the right size for trapping a cat? All the outer boxes for those humane traps have pictures of possums and raccoons and squirrels on them - no cats! Anyway, I set the trap up, but the kitten was too smart and didn't go in the trap. Not only that, she kept setting the trap off without getting trapped! I gave up after a few attempts.

Next time, I'll share with you the trap that worked!