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Home / What We Do / Care for Cats / How to Conduct Trap-Neuter-Return
Familiarize yourself with the Trap-Neuter-Return process and plan your trapping day in advance. In order to ensure the safety and well being of the cats and reduce your own stress, make sure to plan all of your trapping endeavors in advance.
Read the step-by-step instructions below. Understanding the process thoroughly before you trap is essential. Being prepared helps you anticipate potential problems and plan solutions ahead of time. Keep in mind that your trapping will be most effective if you employ targeted trapping. Find and coordinate with the other caregivers about your plans to trap. If you are the primary caregiver, this is a good opportunity to educate the community and let them know you are caring for the cats. If there are other people feeding the cats, talk to them about Trap-Neuter-Return and try to coordinate efforts, particularly when it comes to feeding, withholding food before trapping, and assessing the colony. Alley Cat Allies’ literature, including doorhangers, can help explain what you are doing and why. Feed on a schedule. Establish a routine time and place for feeding the cats every day for at least two weeks prior to trapping. Also, get the cats used to eating in a 30-minute period. Food should not be left out all of the time. The cats will quickly adapt to the feeding time and will come at that time each day. This is essential to making sure that they all come to eat when you plan to trap. Your trapping day will be most successful if the cats are used to seeing traps. You may want to begin feeding cats out of unset traps to gain their confidence. Remember to work with others who may be caring for the cats in order to coordinate feeding efforts, especially when withholding food and assessing the colony. Learn more about feeding and colony care in our How to Provide Care for Outdoor Cats Guide. Ensure that the feeding station is appropriately placed. Position the feeding station in an area that is free of human traffic and is inconspicuous. You will have greater success in manipulating their schedule, getting them to show up, and consequently trapping. Assess the cats. While feeding, start a log of each cat and kitten you see. This will help you monitor the number of cats and their health, determine their approximate age, and help you determine the numbers of appointments and traps you will need. It will also help you identify if some cats are stray—friendly to humans—and may be candidates for adoption into homes or if you will need to be prepared for trapping and fostering kittens (learn more in our Socialized Cat Guide.) It is important that you get to know the colony, the number of cats, and their description to ensure that all of the cats have been trapped. This is also important for ongoing colony care so you will know if any cats are missing or if any new cats join the colony that need to be neutered. Use the ACA tracking sheet to document each cat in the colony and learn more about keeping good records in our How to Provide Care for Outdoor Cats Guide.
While you are assessing the colony, you will also have to consider their specific circumstances and safety. Alley Cat Allies does not recommend relocation; it should be done only under extreme circumstances when the cats’ lives are in eminent danger. The best way to protect the cats is to ensure they are spayed and neutered immediately; then consider other plans that may be necessary, such as relocation. Be fully prepared before you decide to trap and move cats by reading our Guidelines for Safe Relocation of Feral Cats. A common reason caregivers feel they need to relocate a colony is poisoning threats. Learn more about how to deal with poison threats. Schedule the Neuter appointments. Line up clinic or veterinary appointments before you trap. You don’t want to successfully trap cats and then have nowhere to take them. Make appointments for the number of traps you have, though you may not catch a cat in every trap. Find out if the clinic or veterinarian is familiar with trapping and make sure they are prepared if the reservation isn’t fulfilled completely. Ask them what number of cats they can spay and neuter in a single day. Plan your trapping session so that the cats are transported to the veterinarian or clinic as soon as possible. Make appointments for the same or following day to keep cats’ time in the traps at a minimum.
It is important to find a veterinarian or low-cost clinic familiar with or willing to learn how to work with feral cats. Your local Feral Friends can help. If the veterinarian you ultimately choose has no experience with feral cats, he or she can learn more about treating feral cats. Read more about working with a veterinarian. Share Julie Levy's chapter on Feral Cat Management in Shelter Medicine for Veterinarians and Staff geared toward veterinarians. Request a copy from Alley Cat Allies. Determine the location where you will be holding the trapped cats, both before transporting to the clinic and afterwards during their surgery recovery. The indoor location should be dry, temperature-controlled, quiet, and away from dangers such as toxic fumes, other animals, or people. It is important to remember that cats are very vulnerable when in traps! Be prepared for specific scenarios that may occur during your trapping. If you trap a severely injured or sick cat, be prepared to get her to a veterinary clinic immediately. Even before you start trapping have a contingency plan about where you will take the injured or sick cat, and be prepared for any associated financial costs. If you trap a nursing female—you can trap her without her kittens and get her back to them as soon as possible or you can trap her with her kittens and return the whole troop together. Prepare a full-service emergency veterinarian who can handle feral cats in case there is a complication that a spay/neuter clinic cannot address. Although it is not necessary, you may want to consider securing help for the day-of, either through recruiting volunteers or asking a friend. Trapping by yourself, especially for your first time, can be overwhelming and exhausting. Having a companion is also a good safety precaution if you are trapping at night or in an unfamiliar area. Gather all of the appropriate equipment. When trapping a colony, it is best to have at least one trap per cat. Alley Cat Allies suggests having more traps than cats, because you never know which locations will be most attractive to the cats or if a trap will malfunction. Practice setting traps ahead of time. If you have never set a trap, doing it near the trap site on the day-of is not the best place to learn. Be as comfortable as possible with your equipment, for your own peace of mind and the cats’ safety. View a demonstration of setting a Tru-Catch trap and setting a Tomahawk trap. Label the traps. Never leave your traps unattended. It is still a good idea to create a sign stating “Spay and Neuter Program in Progress (Do Not Remove)” or “Humane Trapping in Progress” and attach a copy to each trap. Waterproof the sign by enclosing it in a plastic covering or bag. Make a written plan for the day-of. Make sure your written plan includes every tool you need and step you must complete throughout the Trap-Neuter-Return process. Remember that many tasks must be completed before trapping can start. You must procure traps, and arrange for veterinary services, transportation, and a safe, indoor recovery space. Pay attention to the weather. Never trap in extreme temperatures, hot or cold. They are dangerous conditions for cats to be in without food and exposed to the elements. - Withhold food. You must withhold all food from the cats you intend to trap 24 hours before trapping, to ensure the cats are hungry enough to enter the traps. This includes treats! Also, surgery will be safer for the cats if they have not eaten for at least 12 hours. Remember, you are doing what is best for the cats. Always continue to provide the cats with clean, fresh drinking water.
Next Step: Trapping
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