February 2017 Feral Fix-a-thon

Screenshot of TinyKittens February 2017 Fix-a-thon page

Background

In October 2016, TinyKittens held its first feral fix-a-thon, primarily targetting cats and kittens at the Nano’s Farm colony since it was facing the removal of the old sheds and barns on the property and time was of the essence. A lot of work was done that weekend, but there were still cats and kittens needing to be spayed or neutered.

So a second fix-a-thon was planned, this one to target any leftovers at the Happy Forest and Nano colonies but also to target the newly-supported Lion Colony.

Fix-a-thon Weekend

February 17, 2017 – Day 1 – Trapping & Intakes

Day #1 Trapping Notes:

• Potential target list is 37 cats (not counting the several from Nano’s Farm colony — Dana, Deacon, Floyd, Muppet, Nell, Osborn, Rupert, and Rafferty — who were not trapped during the last fix-a-thon and are presumably still intact but are not on the target list for this fix-a-thon).
• It was a pretty nice day in the Fraser Valley today. It’s supposed to get messy later on the weekend, though it looks like most of the downpour we were expecting is due to hold off until Monday.
  
• At 12:50, Shelly went live at the Lion Colony on the Fix-a-thon Livestream event. She has a couple of cams set up — one outside currently featuring the floofy, gingery goodness of Middle and Wee Pumpkin (and some bees with aspirations to fame and a penchant for teasing the gingers), and one inside the barn.
  
• At around 13:00, Shelly came on cam to mention that she and Gwen were doing some pre-trapping there because they were concerned about the weekend weather and wanted to make sure they’d trap enough cats. Shelly squirted tuna and sardine juice around to draw in some cats, and is baiting traps inside the building.
• At around 16:30, Shelly came on chat and mentioned that Gwen is trapping at Nano’s colony.
• At 17:27, Shelly said she was leaving.
• At 18:10, Shelly shut down the feed to head home. She posted the full video to the Livestream page.
  

The trappees:

1. [13:28] – Middle Pumpkin walked into the trap. [Male]
   He freaked out a bit at first, but Shelly got him quickly covered. She reset the trap — only Middle and Wee Pumpkin had been out and about today so far and should be easy to trap.
   
2. [13:46] – Wee Pumpkin was caught. (He was snarfly and had a goopy eye in need of some TLC.) [Male]
3. [time unknown] Rocky (a previously uncatalogued black cat) was trapped off cam [Male]
   [Shelly says the cats are used to being fed at around 16:15, so hopefully they’ll start to come around soon.]
4. [15:58] A shorter-haired ginger, identity currently unknown.
   [Added later] Cat has been identified as Tate. (Note: There was already an entry for a ginger named Tate in the catalogue; Shelly has since removed that cat completely from the catalogue.)
   [Added even later] Tate’s a girl and has been renamed Terra [Female]
5. At some point after 16:30, the list of cats was updated to show that Gwen had trapped Addison at Nano’s colony [Female]
6. …along with Merrit [Female]
7. …and Nala’s kitten Mali [Female]
   [As she was bringing the traps back into the barn and closing things down for the day, Shelly mentioned that they were going to try to do intakes tonight on the five cats trapped at the Lion Colony and the five cats trapped at Nano’s Colony.]
   [During Wee Pumpkin’s intake, she corrected that to Gwen having trapped 9!! cats at Nano’s and Shelly having trapped 5 at the Lion Colony.]
8. The Great Catermelon (Later renamed the Floofermelon) [Female]
9. Nala, Mali’s mama [Female]
10. Marcel [Male]
11. Racer [Male]
12. Floyd [Male]
13. Previously uncatalogued Esmerelda [Female]
14. Previously uncatalogued Marcella [Female]

Day #1 Intake Notes:

Lion Colony Intakes

• The Floofermelon‘s intake appears to have been done before the stream started back up again. (Or else was done by Gwen quietly off cam while Shelly was doing Wee Pumpkin.)
• The intake broadcast started streaming at 19:51, with the Wee Pumpkin, who has some of the dirtiest, most mite-ridden ears we’ve seen at TinyKittens. (In chat, Kimsies said that Dr. F said ears don’t need to be cleaned but Shelly loves to clean ears. LOL) Gwen was in the room at the start — Shelly occasionally talked to her, but she wasn’t on-cam.
  [The stream reset at 20:10.] Shelly mentioned off-hand that she didn’t think Wee Pumpkin would be going back to the barn. He has some scarring on his cornea, persistent pupillary membranes. He has a URI, but she says he doesn’t seem as snarfly as he did before. He’s about 5 months old (younger than Foo). Still has baby teeth.
• The second on-cam intake was Middle Pumpkin. Shelly felt him up and found definite testicles. 😉 Did basic intake stuff, no ear cleaning. Put him back in his trap because of his manly testicles.
• Black panther Rocky was next. He seems to be in pretty good health so his intake was pretty quick.
• Short-haired Tate was last. Turns out Tate is a girl. Her intake was off-cam. She has been renamed Terra.

Nano’s Colony Intakes

• The intakes on the nine cats brought in from Nano’s Colony were not broadcast.

General Intake Notes

• Lion Colony cats are upstairs at TKHQ, and the cats from Nano’s Colony are downstairs. Gwen went downstairs to work on the Nano’s Colony cats while Shelly finished up with the Lions. There’s hay from barns in the room and in their traps.
• They aren’t doing ear cleanings on everyone on intake — they’re saving that for recovery since it’s kind of a bonding task that can aid socialization attempts. (Wee Pumpkin was a special case because his ears were just so bad.)
• Before she left the room, Shelly put two traps together, end-to-end, so that Wee Pumpkin could have company — he joined the Floofermelon in the double-length trap with its coordinating blue and pink covers. He’s a very scampy kitten and Shelly came back in at 23:00 to put down a comfy blanket for him and to fix the cam that he’d been messing with.

February 18, 2017 – Day 2 – Trapping & Intakes

Day #2 Trapping Notes:

• Up to 30 cats can be spayed/neutered tomorrow with the time and resources available so they can trap 16 additional cats today to make up the numbers. Firefighters from the Township of Langley Firefighters’ Charities will be taking part in the events today.
• Rain is still in the cards for the Fraser Valley today and tomorrow.
  
• At 10:36, Shelly switched the feed over to the Happy Forest. They will be trapping there today, with possibly some additional trapping at Nano’s Colony and the Lion Colony. They’re also going to be doing tarp maintenance at the Happy Forest.
• Two firefighters worked on hanging new tarps over the feeding area.
  
• At 11:50, Shelly stopped at the cam to say that they had Quinn, who is coming in for some dental work, and Elwood. Six are coming in from Surrey (perhaps something to do with the Surrey Community Cat Coalition, which recently trapped 17 cats). Gwen is currently at Nano’s Colony, but hopefully will get to Lion Colony as well. They’re hoping to get Macey.
• 12:59 Shelly had to cover up her laptop because it’s starting to drop out there. Milo is trying to get trapped. Gwen has someone trapped at Nano’s Colony, and now Shelly says there are 7 cats coming from Surrey.
• At 13:14, the cam at the Happy Forest died and that was the end of the on-location viewing.
• As of 17:00, Gwen was still out trapping, hoping to get a couple more cats.
• 20:45: Unofficial word via a chatter that a total of 32 cats had been trapped. Don’t know who the extra 3 cats are yet.
• 22:00: Shelly said there are 34 cats total, but she hasn’t updated things yet. There are some ferocious cats downstairs. (Fix-a-thon page was updated by 23:20.)

The trappees today:

1. [Pre-11:50] Quinn [Female, already spayed, coming in for dental]
2. [Pre-11:50] Elwood [Male]
3. [Pre-12:38] Cato [Male]
4. [Pre-12:38] Macey [Female]
5. Marlowe [Male]
6. Aviva [Female]
7. Emory [Male]
8. Rusty [Male]
9. Chomper [Female]
10. Mikey [Male]
11. Narayan – K1 [Female] (Surrey cat from “Am” colony)
12. Narayan – K2 [Male] (Surrey cat from “Am” colony)
13. Narayan – A1 [Male] (Surrey cat from “Am” colony)
14. Willow – A1 [Female] (Surrey cat from “Am” colony)
15. Ewos – A1 [Female] (Surrey cat from “Am” colony)
16. Ewos – A2 [Male] (Surrey cat from “Am” colony)
17. Ewos – A3 [Male] (Surrey cat from “Am” colony)
18. Ewos – A5 [Male] (Surrey cat from “Am” colony)
19. Ewos – A6 [Male] (Surrey cat from “Am” colony)
20. Narayan – K5 [Male] (Surrey cat from “Am” colony)

SUMMARY: The total number of cats trapped over the two trapping days is 34 cats (14 yesterday and 20 today):
5 from Lion Colony – Wee Pumpkin (M), Middle Pumpkin (M), Floofermelon (F), Rocky (M), Terra (F)
14 from Nano’s Colony – Addison (F), Aviva (F), Chomper (F), Emory (M), Esmerelda (F), Floyd (M), Mali (F), Marcel (M), Marcella (F), Marlowe (M), Merrit (F), Mikey (M), Nala (F), Racer (M),
5 from the Happy Forest – Quinn (F), Macey (F), Elwood (M), Cato (M), Rusty (M)
10 from Surrey – Ewos – A1 (F), Ewos – A2 (M), Ewos – A3 (M), Ewos – A5 (M), Ewos – A6 (M), Narayan – A1 (M), Narayan – K1 (F), Narayan – K2 (M), Narayan – K5 (M), Willow – A1 (F)

Day #2 Intake Notes:

Lion Colony (TKHQ White Room Upstairs)

• Checking in on Wee Pumpkin: At 14:54, Shelly and Kimsies arrived back at TKHQ and came in to check out Wee Pumpkin.
  • He got snacks, cuddles from Kimsies, and his temperature taken (it’s 104° F).
  • He’s particularly sneezey and snarfly. Even though Dr. F is going to be at TKHQ in a few hours, they decided to give him antibiotics, eye ointment, pain meds, and some subQ fluids. (He may not get his neuter tomorrow, but may go in to have his ears checked since they were well on the way to being as bad as Radley’s was.) Shelly checked his ears with an otoscope and cleaned them out a bit more.
  • Kimsies combed him with a flea comb (which he seemed to really enjoy) and found the occasional flea.
  • Shelly mentioned in passing that she had been going to take Wee Pumpkin and Floofermelon over to her place, but then decided to wait until Dr. F arrives tonight to decide.
  • Shelly left Kimsies to snuggle with Wee while Shelly went to do the intakes (off-cam) on the Happy Forest cats.
• Shelly said she’d been hoping to go back to the Lion Colony tonight but doesn’t think she’ll have time (and Gwen, who was trapping at Nano’s Colony, doesn’t yet know how to get to the Lion Colony).

Nano’s Colony (TKHQ Downstairs Rooms)

• If it goes like last night, any new Nano Colony cats will have their intakes done off-cam.

Happy Forest Colony (TKHQ Purple Room Upstairs)

• The intakes on the Happy Forest cats (Cato, Elwood, Macey, and Quinn) were done starting at around 15:55 on the VIP stream.
• Quinn(bunny) – Quinn was apparently not at all impressed with being grabbed by Shelly. Shelly noticed at the colony that Quinn may have a foreign body in one of her molars and has some funky incisors. She put Quinn in her open crate up on the lego blocks with a route to either watch or escape if she wants. She gave her Revolution.
• Elwood – He’s very squirmy and “rambunctious”. Shelly thinks he has some of the best feral teeth she’s seen. She gave him Revolution.
• Cato – Confirmed he’s a boy. Checked his teeth — he has some good “gingervitis” (the gingivitis that a lot of the colony gingers seem to be prone to). His trap was full of leaves so she cleaned it out and put down a clean blanket. She gave him Revolution.
• Rusty – Very growly and hissy. Came out of the drop trap. Gave him Revolution. Very stinky, so Shelly presumed he’s a boy — confirmed by discovery of manly testicles. 😉 Has some gingivitis.
• Macey – Shelly planned to leave Macey in her trap until Dr. F gets there, just in case Macey chooses not to be cooperative. But she changed her mind. Macey’s PCR came back negative so any bald patches are a result of the “love bite” wounds she has on her neck. Shelly tried to feel her belly but Macey was too squished up. Shelly took her up to see if she wanted to snuggle with Quinn. Macey wasn’t too panicked up there and Shelly got some good petting in while Macey looked out the window. Shelly thinks she can feel a baby bump. Shelly moved Quinn’s crate under the window so that Macey has a window seat if she wants it.

General Intake Notes

• The new trap covers and clipboard system they used for this fix-a-thon have been working out well. (Someone said yesterday in chat that the cover colours are random, but the cats in the Lion Colony and Happy Forest room all have pink covers for the girls and blue covers for the boys.)
• Dr. Ferguson (Mountain View Veterinary Hospital) is expected to come to TinyKittens HQ early this evening (at around 18:45/19:00, after the clinic closes) to do 11 ultrasounds on the female cats and check out any of the cats (like Wee Pumpkin) that have health issues.

Notes from Dr. Ferguson’s visit and the evening:

• Happy Forest Cats
  • Macey– Dr. F, Kimsies, and Shelly arrived to ultrasound Macey at 19:10. Tried it with no belly-shaving, but that didn’t work so well (mind you, neither did the human clippers she ended up using because the pet clippers wouldn’t turn on). Dr. F doesn’t think Macey is pregnant, or she’s less than two weeks pregnant. Dr. F also checked out the bite marks on Macey’s back. They’ll check her out better at Mountain View tomorrow.
• Lion Colony Cats
  • Wee Pumpkin – Dr. F checked him out. She doesn’t see persistent pupillary membranes in his bad eye, just viral or trauma (rather than congenital). It’s distorting his pupil. TK will be taking care of him for awhile. Switching to Veraflox once a day for 14 days. Ears are bad, lymph nodes are swollen. Topical steroid twice a day for awhile. Erythromycin for him as well. Shelly shouldn’t clean his ears for a couple of days, give the pain some time to subside.
  • Floofermelon – Floofermelon put up with being held quite well, all things considered. Dr. F doesn’t think Floofermelon is pregnant.
  • Terra: Terra was not happy to be held for her ultrasound. She has a small hernia, which will be repaired during her spay. Dr. F doesn’t think Terra is pregnant.
  • Shelly put Wee and Middle Pumpkins together in a double trap. (She put Wee in with Middle while they were ultrasounding Floofermelon…she’d considered separating them, but ending up leaving them together even when she came back later to remove the food.)
• Nano’s Colony
  • These weren’t done on-cam. We’re awaiting updates on the results of the ultrasounds.
• 22:00 – There was apparently a problem with the ultrasound machine so there were no further ultrasounds. Hopefully it will be working tomorrow; if not, they’ll do manual exams. Shelly removed food from the various cages in preparation for the surgeries tomorrow. (And she put more toys in for Wee to play with.) She’s sporting a bleeding bite wound on her right hand, which can probably be explained by her comment that some of the cats downstairs are ferocious. 😉

February 19, 2017 – Day 3 – Surgeries at Mountain View

Day #3 General Notes:

• Lorie and Kathryn Jane packed up cats to take to Mountain View. They can only take a certain number of cats over at a time (space considerations) so they (and possibly others) will be ferrying cats back and forth throughout the day.
• Wee Pumpkin was given the run of the white room after his colony mates left for their surgeries. There was much meowing at first. He will have a snuggler visitor later.
• Nicole (Willow Sarin’s mom) posted a picture of Wee playing. Volunteers (five of them, including Nicole, Cathy, and Kathryn Jane) had been cleaning up TKHQ for the returning surgical patients and, of course, had some snuggle time with Wee Pumpkin.
  
• Surrey Community Cat Coalition posted pictures of nine of their trapped cats that were spayed/neutered during the fix-a-thon.
  
  One of Kimsies’ pictures below seems to be of the 10th “Surrey” cat, who it seems is being looked after by VOKRA. (She also posted a picture of all the matted hair that came off the very fluffy black cat.)
• Kimsies posted a lot of pictures and videos from the weekend — trapping, snuggling, the fix-a-thon itself.
  
• She also posted pictures of the custom-labelled (by Duolynx) Kalala wine commemorating the event.
  

Day #3 Surgeries at Mountain View:

You can watch the whole event (all 8+ hours of it) on Shelly’s Livestream event for the fix-a-thon.

• Action at Mountain View started at around 09:00.
• The Team: 6 veterinarians, 3 RVTs (with 2 two more to come), a vet student coming after she studies…plus Shelly (from the start), Kimsies (later on), and everyone ferrying cats to/from the clinic.
  • Vets: Dr. Renee Ferguson (Mountain View Veterinary Hospital), Dr. Anita Glups (Mountain View Veterinary Hospital), Dr. Margaret Henderson (Mountain View Veterinary Hospital), Dr. Sherisse Sakals (Canada West Veterinary Specialists), Dr. Adriana Regalado (West Coast Veterinary Dental Services), Dr. Sheila Rusticus (North West Nuclear Medicine for Animals)
  • RVTs: Theresa (Mountain View Veterinary Hospital); Juanita (Mountain View Veterinary Hospital); Denise (used to work for Dr. F, from Scottsdale Veterinary Hospital); Jamie (came later, Mountain View Veterinary Hospital); Suzanne (came later, North West Nuclear Medicine for Animals); Shacara (Boundary Bay Veterinary Specialty Hospital)
  • Gwen (TinyKittens’ cat whisperer and goddess – there as “cat holder”, not as a vet tech)
  • Angie Quaale (Township of Langley councillor, chef, and TinyKittens board member) catered the food.
• Mountain View posted several pictures on Facebook throughout the event.
  
  
• Notable situations:
  • Quinn isn’t going back to the Happy Forest. Her teeth are bad; they’re going to extract several today, but she’ll need regular dental visits (every six months) and will likely need all her teeth extracted at some point. She’s quite young (18 months to 2 years old). They’ll be looking for a special home for her with humans who are committed to her ongoing dental care.
  • Mali won’t be going to back to Nano’s farm, according to Shelly. She is very sweet (Dr. Sheila carried her over to the camera while cuddling her after her spay) but is in need of the TinyKittens Pudge Plan to fatten her up a bit.
  • Nala (Mali’s mama) had a lengthy spay surgery as she had a hernia that needed repair at the same time. (Per Dr. F’s exam yesterday, Terra also had a small hernia that would have been repaired during her spay.)
  • Racer, an elderly (in feral terms) black cat from Nano’s colony, had extensive dental work done. (Per Shelly’s notes on his database entry, he has a “broken upper left canine, missing incisors”.)
  • Rusty also had extensive dental work done — he had 12 teeth removed.
• Summaries:
  • At around 13:30, Shelly updated the fix-a-thon page to indicate that 15 of the 34 trapped cats had been spayed or neutered. (Note: Quinn was still in surgery while Shelly was updating so the fact that she had already been spayed hasn’t been reflected in the stats; also, Wee Pumpkin won’t be getting neutered today because of his illness; so there are *only* 32 cats to be spayed/neutered today.)
    
    Neutered: Cato, Elwood, Floyd, Marcel
    Spayed: Addison, Aviva, Chomper, Ewos – A1, Esmerelda, Mali, Marcella, Merrit, Nala, Narayan – K1, Terra
  • By 14:17, Shelly had updated the stats again to reflect the cats in care (though it doesn’t show Mali as “in our care”) and the speutering of the ginger floofs)
    
    In Care: Macey, Quinn, The Wee Pumpkin
    Neutered: The Middle Pumpkin
    Spayed: The Floofermelon
  • Last cat was on the table at 16:08.
  • By 16:40, Shelly had updated the stats again to reflect that all cats who were going to be spayed or neutered today were done.
    
    Neutered: Emory, Ewos – A2, Ewos – A3 , Ewos – A5, Ewos – A6, Marlowe, Mikey, Narayan – A1, Narayan – K2, Narayan – K5, Racer, Rocky, Rusty, Willow – A1
  • Rusty was the last cat to be completely done, at about 17:09 when his dental was over and Teresa was just finishing things up.
  • As always, Shelly ended the broadcast with a shot of all of the bits and pieces removed from cats today.
    
    She also later posted a picture of Nala’s and Quinn’s teeth.
    

End of Day Notes

• Once Shelly got back to TKHQ, she gave Wee Pumpkin his meds and eye ointment. She also opened up all of the cage doors so that the other Lion Colony cats could get out and about if they wanted — Wee proceeded to go in and sample all of their foods. Everyone came out to check things out at some point. Terra would really like to get out (and probably back to her friend at the farm). Wee played a lot. Middle and Rocky joined in later on.
• The cage doors in the Happy Forest room were also all opened. Rusty and Elwood were out and about in the Happy Forest room. One of them knocked over Macey’s cam and spotlight so we were left with room cam. Quinn poked her head out but then went back in her crate.

Happy Ever Afters

Most of the cats had just a brief stay at TKHQ while they recovered from their surgeries. They returned to their respective colonies, where the various property owners and/or caretakers will continue to look after them.

Quinn(bunny) and Macey were adopted together. Wee Pumpkin was adopted by the same people who adopted Cassidy’s brother Topper. Little Mali unfortunately developed an aggressive form of FIP and was humanely euthanized after a very rapid decline.

More Information

• For more information about the cats and kittens from this colony who stayed at TinyKittens HQ for a period of time, check out the Happy Forest feral colony graduates, guests, and losses, Nano’s Farm feral colony graduates, guests, and losses, Lion Colony graduates, guests, and losses, and Colony of the Dolls graduates, guests, and losses pages here on this site.
• More information about TinyKittens, People for Happier Cats, and their TNR/feral cat projects and initiatives can be found at tinykittens.com. and on their Facebook pages.