Trap-Neuter-Return works. But the difference between a colony that stabilizes and one that keeps producing kittens often comes down to something unglamorous: records. If you can’t tell at a glance who’s fixed and who isn’t, you end up re-trapping ear-tipped cats and missing the intact ones. Here are the seven things worth tracking for every colony.

1. Location and boundaries. Where the colony actually is, feeding stations, shelter spots, and the edges where it blurs into the next one. A pin on a map beats a description every time.
2. Individual cats. A photo, a name or ID, and distinguishing marks. Cats blur together fast; the photo is what keeps “the gray tom” from being four different cats.
3. Spay/neuter status and date. The single most important field. Ear-tip status, who did the surgery, and when, so nobody re-traps a fixed cat.
4. Medical history. Vaccines, tests, treatments, and any ongoing conditions. Especially useful when a cat comes back in months later.
5. Who’s caring for it. Feeding schedule and which volunteer covers it, so coverage gaps show up before a station goes cold.
6. Population over time. A dated census, not just today’s count. The trend line is how you prove, to yourself and to funders, that TNR is working.
7. Outcomes. Returned, adopted, relocated, or lost. Closing the loop on each cat is what keeps the census honest.

You can absolutely keep all of this in a spreadsheet, and many caretakers do. The friction shows up when the colony changes weekly and the census has to be re-tallied by hand every time a cat is returned or a litter is pulled.

Purralytics keeps these seven in one place and does the tedious part for you: return a cat and the colony census updates itself, and every change is saved as a dated snapshot so the trend is always there when you need it. Try it free for up to three colonies.