u/InsomniaDoodles

I really want to shoot for 1200 cals a day, but if I can stay under 1500, I call it a win. 😊

Here’s how I did today, tracked via LoseIt! app.

The beef and veggie soup there was a “stone soup“ style concoction of leftovers, food pantry items, and just a few store-bought ingredients to tie it together. The flavors I was able to build in this recipe were so rich and deep, I am souper satisfied with it. 😊

Here’s the link to the recipe I made for it in LoseIt!: https://loseit.com/shares/54b42943-53e7-11f1-930e-2d13590c6d0c

We TNVRed two ferals and surrendered a super friendly (confirmed homeless) cat to the local shelter fully vetted and ready for adoption!

The clinic I took them to did an amazing job, but they didn't cover the traps fully again after surgery so the ferals freaked out when they came to and Muffin cut his nose on the trap and Dingus's eartip got bloody from scraping against the top of his cage while pacing. :( I'm going to have to ask them to make sure the traps are FULLY covered next time so that won't happen again. Thankfully there were no serious injuries or complications though! I'm so glad we were able to get them fixed.

WE CAUGHT MUFFIN!

My white whale!

The virile menace who has fathered so many litters and evaded so many traps!

FINALLY! Woo!

Also successfully trapped one of his 5-6 month old-ish kittens and still trying to trap the other before it's time to head off to the TNR clinic this morning. We're still trying to catch that female kitten until the very last minute, fingers crossed! If not, I still have three cats secured (put a friendly community cat on standby in a kennel) and I had made three appointments, so I'm still calling this a win. I'm already signed up for another clinic in June to try to get her fixed again if we don't get lucky today.

Trap training is going well! I'll be setting the traps to hopefully catch all three of these ferals tomorrow (May 5th), but here's the problem- they pretty much always show up together at the same time. I'm worried that once they see one getting trapped, the other two are going to BOOK IT and not come back. Am I worried over nothing? I've collaborated with my neighbors so they won't be getting fed today or tomorrow so they SHOULD be hungry enough to risk it, maybe. Any tips on how I can successfully get these guys secured for their appointment Wednesday morning? Thanks!

Hi friends!

I recently got started doing TNR for the feral cats that visit my porch. I've successfully trapped, snipped, and vaccinated three of them and I'm planning to trap three more this week, two of which are extremely skittish kittens (about 4-5 months old) and an adult male who has evaded traps expertly in the past. His name is Muffin. He isn't necessarily trap shy, but he is an expert at evading the trigger plate and eating the bait without setting off the trap (despite the trigger plate being covered by a puppy pad). Since the kittens are likely going to be too afraid to enter the traps on the day of trapping, I intend to start trap training tonight (their TNR appointment is on May 6th) by placing a trap on the porch where I feed them, secured open with zip ties so it won't close on them, and place some of their food in there to encourage them to get comfortable with entering the trap.

I have never done trap training before, but I read some tips online. I was wondering if anyone here might have some other real life advice from your own experiences that might help me out with this.

Thanks in advance!

Please enjoy this video of a majestic release from our first feral TNR batch. He's a gorgeous cat, but SUPER spicy feral. His name is Waffles and he only appears on my community cat cams, but he visits us every night for food and water. He was released from a kennel because he was still sedated enough after surgery that we were safely able to move him from his trap to a more comfortable recovery zone so he could have access to food, water, and a litter box. I do not recommend doing this with feral cats unless the cat is sufficiently sedated. I probably won't be able to do this for my next batch because the clinic I'm taking them to this time lets them come out of sedation before discharging, the other was a mobile mass TNR clinic that fixes over 100 cats in a single day, so they didn't wait for sedation to wear off. I know people have opinions about this, but it's a common practice for those kinds of clinics. Just wanted to explain why he was released from a kennel despite being very feral. I always always always do my best to get friendly cats to rescues rather than returning them to the streets if at all possible if owners can't be found.

I ate 3/4 of the pictured flatbread and a small piece of my partner’s chicken bacon ranch flatbread! Mine had rotisserie chicken breast meat, mushrooms, black olives, spinach, pizza blend shredded cheese, and some small pieces of low cal mozzarella tossed in olive oil and basil. The base was a little bit of basil Alfredo sauce.

I also had a small serving of raw broccoli, cauliflower, and baby carrots as a snack for fiber intake. I don’t track those calories per my nutritionist’s instructions (we don’t track raw non-starchy veggies), but it would have been very little anyway!