A Neat and Clean Bandit!

When I got my feral cat colony, I also got a lot of paperwork and instructions from Treehouse Humane Society.  One instruction was to put food down at the same times every day, morning and evening, and to ring a little bell so that the cats would come to feed.  If the cats didn't come within an hour or so, I was supposed to pick the food up and bring it inside so as not to attract other wildlife.

Other wildlife, I thought?  All we have around here are squirrels, garter snakes and of course, rats.  I had already observed that the squirrels were not interested in the food, but only took a few sips of water here and there.  I wasn't worried about the snakes, and I hoped the rats were staying far away from anything that smelled like cats.

Because my cats made themselves so scarce in the beginning of their stay in my yard, I left food down 24/7.  Many days it would go uneaten, and I would just throw stale stuff away and replace it with fresh stuff.  I assumed my cats were off hunting and catching their own food as they got familiar with their new neighborhood.  I got a few reports from neighbors in the condo building next door -- my neighbor Louis was getting into his car one morning, and he looked down and saw a mouse head and a mouse tail.  That made me laugh.  Finicky cats, they only want the soft center filet of mouse!

So that I could see what was going on with my little colony, I bought a motion-detector camera, the kind that hunters use to spot wildlife.  I strapped it into position on my deck and aimed it at the feralvillas (the cat houses) and the feeding station.  I set it to take 20-second videos.  It takes nice color videos during daylight, and black and white after dark, using infrared so there is no visible flash.  The cats don't seem aware of the camera at all, it is working great.  Dan and I have been watching the cats come and go at all hours of the day and night.  We watch them feed, groom themselves, and perch on top of the feralvillas.

For a Thanksgiving treat, I mixed a bunch of turkey scraps in to the regular canned cat food and put it out in the feeding station.  The next morning I retrieved the camera and Dan and I sat down to watch some cat videos.  Everything was as usual until we got to a couple of videos that were shot at 1:30 a.m.  Much to our surprise and alarm, there was a raccoon munching away at the feeding station!!  Treehouse was right, I had attracted other wildlife into my yard by leaving the food out all night.  It was a young raccoon, probably a teenager.  It munched on the wet food -- enjoying the turkey, I'm sure -- and then it took a few sips of water from the water bowl and dunked one paw in the water.  He looked like he was rinsing off his little paw.

So now, of course, I have to start doing what Treehouse advised me to do from the beginning.  I have to put food down when I come home from work at 6:00 p.m., ring my little dinner bell, and then pick the food back up and bring it in the house before I go to bed.  Hopefully the raccoon and his relatives won't come around during the early evening hours, but the wildlife camera will let me know if he does.

So what did I learn?  To take the advice of people who know a whole lot more about this stuff than I do!