Tragic accident today and they're ALL GONE (but for one)!!! Gone... sobbing

[WitchyOoman]

I've been so busy taking care of my cat colony that I haven't had much time online lately.

I re-trapped Cobby (the old tom cat) Sunday... he's been in since right after the 10:00am Mass.
He wasn't quite so hostile this time, coming back in. Mercifully.

We watched on Sunday when Cobby circled the traps, studying them carefully. He then tested them from the oustside fo them, first slapping the trip plate of the Havahart box traps with his paw... each paw slap consecutively harder and harder... and each paw slap hitting a different part of the trip plate. He watched as nothing happened, but finally, one paw slap hit just right and tripped the trap and - BAM! - the door slammed down. Cobby then tried his best to open the trap door, and when he couldn't... he moved on to the next havahart trap, and did the dame thing. That little b@$t@rd cat tripped each of my box traps - one by one - and then he snaked his paw into each trap, and carefully stole the food from each, and ate it, one morsel of food at a time!

We went back out, and we re-ser the traps again, this time covering the trip plates with paper towels.

FINALLY, we got lucky: Cobby's lame leg accidentally didn't pick up far enough and that paw hit the plate and tripped the trap and it closed and trapped him inside. Whew! Inside Cobby came again.

We spent hours, last night, watching his son, Tiger Mac do the exact same thing... cheating our traps and stealing the bait food from them... repeatedly! FINALLY, we put a can of tunafish right on the trip plate, and when he began to eat, it triggered the door and trapped him. We brought Tiger Mac inside, too, late last night.

Now, all of the feral cats are back inside again..... and safe. thank God!


Now I'm working with them, trying to socialize them. That's taking up most of my waking hours, right now.

[WitchyOoman]

From the left to right & top down:
(pix uploaded differently than expected)

Nike (the identical 'stamp' of her mother, Blackie)

Midnight sleeping on one of my living room sofas (yep, I gave her my beloved dog's name)

Blackie (Nike's mama) on Mr Witchy's lounge chair in the living room

Big Velvet walking along the 9-1/2 foot ceiling... well, actually, along the top of the books stacked on top of the Art Deco hideaway bar (we're in the middle of home renovations)

Big Velvet coming down off of the top of the books in the big bay window in the living room... incidentally - that's the window that they broke through, that very window, lower down, where it's boarded up (out of the picture)

They're already not looking quite so feral, not quite so wild any more, are they?
I mean, just look at Midnight, for heaven sake! I spent part of the afternoon petting her. She now lets me pet and touch her.
And does Nike look totally feral, posing like that for a picture with flash? Nope. And Nike eats daintily from a fork, already. She's learning very sweet table manners!
And Midnight, after a night or two of watching Nike eat from my fork, has now begun to eat from my fork. Midnight still grabs and gobbles - but she takes from the fork. She didn't do that yesterday! She learns fast! Wow!