I thought I’d follow up on the feral cats, after their TNR adventure a week or so ago.
They’ve settled back into their usual routine, sleeping in the heated shelter most of the time, turning up for meals at the feeding station, and patroling around the exterior of the house. We’ve seen them on the back deck (drinking from the dog’s water dish), and playing on the front deck. They’ve approached the doors, too.
While they were more skittish around me for the first day or two after getting home, they’ve gotten over that, and gone back to their usual level of skittishness, where I can get within 6 – 10 feet of them.
Here are an assortment of photos.
Drinking from the dog’s water dish (they do have their own water dispenser, but this one is closer to the shelter, for now):
Peeking at me while I get bird seed:
Hard to see, but three pairs of eyes peeking from under the deck:
So casual:
Mid-lick!
Actually three cats in this photo; head and tail of two different cats in the shelter:
This shelter is rated for up to 4 cats, and we have 5. It was fine when the kittens were smaller, but now that they’re getting closer to fully grown, it’s a bit overcrowded. So I am currently in the planning stages of building a new shelter for them; a custom wooden structure that will be quite a bit bigger. It will also include a feeding station, so I can replace the monstrous hack job I have out front with a nicer one next to their shelter.
Oh yeah, speaking of that hack job, I did modify it a bit since I posted about it, to put the dish under cover… but that just made it even uglier:
Stay tuned for posts about this fun new project!