Awesome job! Thanks for caring.

How did it go?? 🤗🤗🤗

USAtexasforever yep. Good suggestion and wish I had read it before trying to close this thing up.

The only way to TNVR 100% of the cats in a colony is to first identify and coordinate with 100% of the people feeding the cats. Before we trap, we canvas the neighborhood knocking on every door, talking to anyone who answers the door, and leaving fliers for those people who are not home. We also check the front yards of people who are not home for bowls and note the house for a return visit if no one answers. (It sometimes take multiple return visits and even some gifts of cat food to make contact with feeders who are shy but this is necessary.) We map the location of all of the feeders of the colony. Most established colonies have a half dozen or more feeders and look something like a bullseye on a map with a large central food site in the center and smaller sites radiating outward. We discuss our TNVR plans with everyone we speak with, and collect the contact information and some basic colony information (such as feeding times and approximate number of cats at dinner) from each feeder we identify. We then make enough vet appointment over a two day windows to accommodate all of the cats in the neighborhood. We contact all of the feeders and then arrange simultaneous trapping of the entire colony at all feeding sites over a 72 hour window. In this manner we are able to capture 100% of the cats in the neighborhood in just 3 days. If you have not identified and coordinated with all of the feeders of your neighborhood colony, your chances of success are slim for exactly the reasons you describe. Coordination with your fellow caretakers is the key to success, much more so than any particular type of equipment.

@@laurelcatsinc.8696 Thanks so much for all you do and great tips!!

If you are trapping on a rough surface such as a deck, grass, or gravel parking lot, placing something flat and hard under the trap stand will allow it to slide much more easily.

@@laurelcatsinc.8696 thank you 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼 one can see you have all the experience and generosity !!!

You had the drop trap fully covered with an opaque cloth but plenty of light shining through the rear end of the transfer cage? If so, that is unusual. If the cat avoids the drop trap in the future, you can train it to eat out of a box trap. Wire the front end of the box trap open and begin feeding the cat each day a little closer to the box trap. Then begin the put the food just inside the moth of the trap. Then move the food a little further in each day. The cat will eventually become accustomed to eating inside the box trap and then you can set it to trap the cat.

@@laurelcatsinc.8696 It was night time when I caught her and so there was no light near the transfer cage. Was that the problem? She won't go into a box trap at all. I've already tried that. She won't go in it because the next door neighbors already caught her in one, but then decided to let her go. She is still out there eating and I'm hoping to retry the drop trap again. I don't know if she'll go under it again or not. I may still have the same problem with her not going into the transfer though so I don't know what to do.

@@davidangeloftm8616 Yes, anytime that you need to transfer a cat from one container to another you need light. Cats are extremely far sighted. They can see very little other than movement within a few feet of their face. They use their sense of smell and whiskers to determine what is directly in front of them if it isn't moving. Because of this, cats cannot see the bars of a trap which is why they go berserk until you cover them. It's like they are bumping against invisible walls. The way you transfer a cat from one cage to another is that you cover all of the walls except the wall in the direction that you want to cat to travel. The light shining through that open wall will appear to the cat to be an opening and escape route so the cat will run that way. If you are drop trapping at night in a dark spot you can use the light set up shown in the beginning of the video to flood the area with enough light that you will be able to transfer the cat. Also, the box trap acclimation process I described above WILL work for a previously trapped cat so long as you do it slowly over time and don't rush the process. Drop traps are a fairly new invention. Trappers used this box trap acclimation process successfully for decades to retrap trap-shy cats before the drop trap was invented.

@@laurelcatsinc.8696 Thanks for the response. The cat is still out there, but now she won't go into the drop trap while I am out there. I'm thinking I will have to set it and then try to pull the string from inside the house, but to do this I'll have to reorient the trap sideways from what it is now. I hope this doesn't scare her further.

@@laurelcatsinc.8696 Just an update - I was able to retrap the kitten in the drop trap today and she is now safely inside and has her first vet appt scheduled soon. Thanks for your video.

The best place to buy a Tomahawk Drop Trap is from Tomahawk. Their website is: www.livetrap.com/

@@laurelcatsinc.8696 yees I looked on their web sight but I can't find the one with no bottom to it like the one in video. I need that one. any help?

@@Soldruid Type the words "drop trap" into the search bar on their web site.

Set the trap out and feed under the trap and ONLY under the trap. After a week of this, the cat will be eating under the trap.

No one in our group has. We have never seen a need. Both Bryan Kortis and Sterling Davis both had podcasts on in the last couple of weeks discussing it. Bryan basically indicated that he didn't see any advantages and that the whirring of the motor before the latch pulls could spook and loose cats. Sterling said the biggest advantage he saw was he was able to attract more male trapper because "they liked pulling a trigger." We will probably stick to the rope for now.

@@laurelcatsinc.8696 I'm going to get the remote because of the distance involved (about 30 yards or so). I hope the remote is good for that kind of distance but I don't know.

@@dirkdiggler404 I'

@@dirkdiggler404 I'm sure Tomahawk customer service can answer that about their remote. If you find the remote does not work for you try placing a piece of corrugated plastic under the stand to allow it to slip easier and then use braided Dracron rope. You can get this from Amazon and it has much less stretch than nylon so it works well even from a distance.