Outdoor Cats Breed Year-round

We tried trapping at the Pallet Colony on Friday night, but the alley was very busy and we only re-trapped ear-tipped cats. They all looked great.

At one point a man with a sheriff’s badge around his neck came up to my car and knocked on the window. Obviously he was not a sheriff – it was pretty funny. He jumped Ron’s fence and got him for us. Ron feeds and cares for the cats. We gave him two outdoor shelters, and wet and dry cat food. We called it a night.

Joann returned Saturday night and trapped the 18th cat from this colony so far.

She named the cat Vern, in honor of the maintenance man at the retirement center who has helped us immensely with information and access to the building.

The next day when she went to pick Vern up from PAWS Chicago’s spay/neuter clinic, she learned the cat is female.

Vern is actually Verna. And not only that, she was in heat.

The resilience of these colonies is amazing to me, and their capacity to breed even under the harshest conditions is astounding.

Verna is currently recovering nicely at my place. She freezes still when she sees me. The only thing she moves are her eyes, looking at what she can. She poses just the same, but I prefer this photo showing off her ear tip.

We’ve seen at least a half dozen more cats that need to be TNR’d, so we’re going back again to trap there tonight.