A case of mistaken identity and Ronnie goes to the vet

Just a quick update this month. We have finally taken Ronnie (named after Ron from Harry Potter as he’s ginger) to the vet for neutering. I trapped him on Thursday night, and he had the op on Friday. I haven’t seen him since he raced off out of the cage on Saturday morning, but this is not unusual. He is very feral and the whole experience will have been frightening so I imagine he’ll give Fort Feral a wide berth for a while. We’re hoping he can join the musketeers once his hormones settle down and he smells less threatening. The vet found he had ‘Thelazia callipaeda’ (eye worms) and treated those as well. This is a horrible, painful disease, from a nematode carried by fruit flies, and if untreated can lead to blindness. Here’s a pic from a while ago of Ronnie.

We also took one of the many black feral cats from the other side of the village. The neighbour had brought her around having trapped her and I was assured she was the female who had given birth about 6 weeks ago. Ahem!!!! I dutifully took her to the clinic the next day only to discover she most certainly was not that cat, as during surgery the vet could not find her uterus. Poor little cat. She’d already been neutered. She’s now back home with her family and hopefully is not too traumatised.

This demonstrates the importance of ear tipping (snipping off the very tip of the ear to show the cat is neutered). The vet has now done this and the hunt continues for the mother of the kitten ...

Finally, thanks to Jane and Trevor for looking after Fort Feral and its inhabitants (and the rest of the menagerie) while we were away. You were right about Ronnie! He needed to be top of the list.