3 adult cats (Dayna, Nellie, Oahu) and 8 kittens (Modelo, Kookie, Rindi, Cookie, Lightnin', Livingston, Nemo & Nelson) were the stars of our show.  Everyone did a great job meeting their new prospective parents.

5 adoptions occurred at the event to pre-approved adopters:

• Oahu - adopted by a gentleman in Aurora who was looking for a work-from-home buddy.
• Lightnin' - adopted by a couple in Villa Park who recently lost their senior male cat.  Lightnin' will have a 5 yr old female cat to keep him company.
• Nemo & Nelson - adopted by a gal and her 8 yr old daughter in Lombard.  These boys are their first furry pets and her daughter was learning all about petting and playing with them.
• Modelo - adopted by a retired couple in Westmont who will have time to give him lots of love.

Rindi also met her potential future mom, who was pre-approved.  A follow-up visit with the whole family and their dog is planned for this week.

Several more folks also came for their first visit and 2 applications were completed (one specifically for Nellie).  Follow-up is underway.

In addition, 6 adults and older kittens and 21 younger kittens were adopted from their foster homes since our last adoption event on 12/18:

Adults & Older Kittens

• Asher - adopted by a gal in Chicago as her first cat companion on her own.
• Harpo - adopted by a family in Bartlett with a 10 yr old male cat for Harpo to hang out with.
• Kingsley - adopted by a couple in Lisle.  They have 2 cats, one who was adopted from Feral Fixers in 2015.
• Neville - adopted by a animal-loving family in Racine, WI with 3 dogs and 2 young cats.  Neville loves other pets, so he will have lots of playmates.
• Weston & Weigela - adopted by a family in Villa Park who lost their prior cats.  The kittens will have a 2 yr old mini Goldendoodle, who is only slightly bigger than they are, to hang out with.

Younger Kittens

• Daizy - adopted by a young couple in Lisle as a gentle companion for their special needs 6 yr old daughter.
• Dallas & Danielle - adopted by a gal in Oakbrook Terrace who lost her prior cat.
• Dandy & Daytona - adopted by a family in Wood Dale as their first kittens.  They had other pets previously.
• Darrow & Hi-C - adopted by a family in Oak Lawn as their first kittens.  Their 11 yr old daughter will give the kittens lots of love.
• Dasher & Dazzle - adopted by a family in Dyer, IN with two 2 yr old female cats to keep them company.
• Dawson - adopted by a retired gal in Woodridge who has time to give him lots of attention.
• Hip Hop - adopted by a family in Joliet as a companion for a kitten they adopted in September - the girls are doing well together.
• Hiram - adopted by a family in Aurora with a 2 yr old female cat who was looking for a playmate.
• Hirschel - adopted by his foster mom in Bolingbrook, who could not let him go ;-)
• Liebchen & Lipton - adopted by a gal in Glen Ellyn as her work-from-home companions.
• Lexi - adopted by her foster family after Lexi made it clear she was not leaving!
• Norma Jean - adopted by a family in Lisle as their first kitten companion.  Their 13 yr old son will give her lots of attention.
• Ryalta & Rybbons - adopted by a work from hom mom and her 5 yr old daughter in Campton Hills, IL.
• Ryta & Valley Girl - adopted by the pet-loving father of their foster family.  They will have 3 senior cats to teach them the ropes in their new home.  

This brought us to 46 adoptions in December, and a total of 333 adoptions in calendar year 2021.  This is the highest annual total since we received our IL shelter license in 2013!  January 2022 has also started out strong with 20 adoptions since the start of the year.  Congratulations to all as we continue to give more cats & kittens happy & safe lives indoors!

Many thanks to the foster families who brought their kittens to this event (Barb, Cheri, Diane, Jennifer & Jeremy, Lori, Mirian, Rachel/Sephie).  Special thanks to the fosters who were also able to stay during the event to interact with our guests and promote their fosters.

Many more thanks to the volunteers who made this event possible.  Connie & Ted - For the excellent promotion of this event, which drew in the attendees.  Trista & Candy - for help cleaning the building prior to the event.  Sara, Steve and Steve's daughter Michelle - for the efficient set-up.  Sara - who had a busy day adoption counseling, creating all of the adoption paperwork and handling the photography during the event as well as helping with the laundry.  Trista - for the great job with adoption counseling and interacting with our guests.  Steve - for the professional looking cage cards, for covering the front desk and greeting our guests, and for handling the lunch run. 

We have one more adoption event scheduled for January at our building:

Saturday, January 29, 11am-3pm

We are gradually reaching the end of the busy kitten season and have found homes for many of kittens we rescued in 2021.  There are still some more wonderful kittens waiting for their forever families as well as several adult cats, however.  Future adoption events in February and beyond will be scheduled based on available cats & kittens.

Thanks,

Sue

Our Black Cat Giving Tuesday Fundraiser – We made it! Our combined donations and pledges made it to almost $35,000! Our donors are the best! Thank you for the alumni updates! It was clear that you guys were sharing our fundraiser and we appreciate it so much!

An update on our Amazon Smile donations - our donation from Amazon Smile for the period of 7/1/21 to 9/30/21 was $538.32 – that means that our supporters spent over $107,000 and designated Feral Fixers as their charity!

Our next Adoption Event will be on January 18^th 15^th at 330 Eisenhower Ln N, Lombard from 11 – 3. We have such wonderful cats and kittens, please fill out adoption paperwork in advance to streamline the process! Visit our Petfinder to see a few of our adoptables but be aware that some are adopted even before they are posted, which is why being on file in advance can make a difference!

While we have snow, don’t forget to snap some pics of your ferals for our photo contest where we pick the picture for our Holiday Card for the following year. Good resolution, ear tip visible, snow on the ground. Your feral could be famous! Complete guidelines and a gallery of previous year’s winners can be found HERE.

We Stay in Touch!

Motts, one of our recently relocated Working Cats, let curiosity get the better of him and got a jar stuck on his head. It took 4 days to get him to go into a trap, when he finally did, off he went to Glen Ellyn Animal Hospital to be sedated and the jar rim removed. Incredible that he received no cuts as a result of this calamity! He's back home and doing well. We've relocated dozens of cats this year as word of our Working Cats Program has spread. Several calls have been from new owners of properties that while those properties were vacant, mice went rampant. So great to see people stepping away from poison control and putting cats to work! When TNR'd cats can no longer stay where they are, we do relocate them as the last option. Spread the word!

Motts - before and after having the jar removed!

One More

Surprise was wondering what we had in store for him - this is the day before his neuter. Big guy at 12 pounds!

Black Cat Giving Tuesday Fundraiser – Will We Make It?

Our donations made a huge leap and as of this writing the total is over $13,000 – 87% of goal! Our donors are outstanding! We enjoy hearing from our caretakers and adopters about how Feral Fixers cats are doing. We still have until December 31^st to get to our goal. Visit us on Facebook and share this fundraiser with friends and family!

No Frosty Claws in 2022

Not yet. Believe it or not, the biggest drawback to having Frosty Claws is the inability to find a location large enough that everyone can attend. An open house, so that people can show up at the last minute, our usual attendance is about 200. With waiting so long for this event, 300 showing up would not be a surprise. Under Covid restrictions that would have to be a very large space. And it has to be in central DuPage. Event locations of that size are much more expensive and require catering if food & beverage is part of the event. We've had sit-down, catered events and they have been not been well received. Sure, we might be able to use a warehouse but that requires rental and set up of tables and chairs that we just don't have the volunteers for. One of the best parts of Frosty Claws has been the open atmosphere where attendees can socialize freely and it is not expensive to get in the door. This is an event for our caretakers, adopters and donors and if we raise a lot of money, too, how great is that! But the first goal has always been for everyone who wants to come to be able to and to have a really good time. Many people have asked if there will be a Frosty Claws this year and were looking for a flyer in the Holiday Card and we wanted to let everyone know – not yet.

We appreciate all the people who have continued to care about the cats. Many new caretakers had the time to resolve the cats around them. Extra time spent at home led to lots of new fosters and some foster failures as those families adopted their fosters, unable to part with them. People spending more time at home led to many more kittens being brought in and the longest "kitten season" we've ever experienced with the extended balmy weather. We formed tighter bonds with the area rescues as we all went thru the same challenges.

All those kittens took a toll on our fosters, our s/n transporters and Sue, our adoption counselor. There were individual kittens that actually received 40 – 50 inquiries EACH! But each of these kittens go to the best home possible for them as individuals and the alumni stories we receive validate the effort put into that goal. Please take the time to read the foster story included in this newsletter, we have some very impressive volunteers.

Thru it all we kept going as our physical interactions with people are limited and usually outdoors. A few fosters experienced COVID, most of us have been able to remain healthy.

Our ability to fundraise has been greatly impacted as cat people are much more social with other cat people than one might think and they greatly enjoy our in-person events!

A Few Notes About the Building

We try to wash and disinfect our traps before they go into Winter storage so they can be used immediately in the Spring. We were able to transport them all to the building, the railing spacing on the ramp made it very easy to get them into the building, the new washtub was able to hold 4 traps (3 large, 1 small) at once, so simple! And there was plenty of room for spraying with a blast of disinfectant, rinsing and shipping off to storage!

Fundraising

Just a few more days of our Black Cat Giving Tuesday Fundraiser. We hope the 2021 Feral Fixers Happy New Year! Raffle helps to replace our Frosty Claws event and provide something our donors will enjoy participating in.

For many reasons, I receive emails from a great many non-profits. That means that I see how they promote their organizations and ask for money. We do our very best to be different, low-volume and specific about our needs. I can't imagine how weary some of you must be, bombarded on a daily basis by every group for human, environmental, political and animal needs. I could say negative things about those other groups but would instead reaffirm that funds donated to Feral Fixers work to benefit the cats in this geographic area. Surgeries, medications, food, transportation, supplies, a building to house them in, it all goes towards the cats. The percentage of funds used for fundraising (administrative costs are often a high percentage of total costs) is minimal. We adapt ideas and make our asks as enjoyable as possible 😸. We will never be able to give up fundraising but promise to keep the annoyance to a minimum!

We have personal relationships with our donors and we appreciate them so much!

Happy Holidays!

We wish you a Wonderful Holiday and the Best Possible New Year!

Thank you all for your personal messages this year, they are greatly appreciated. Wish we could thank you all individually!

DuPage Giving Days

S/N Still Shut Down

While we cannot hold spay days yet, cats continue to come our way.  On March 25^th, one of our volunteers picked up a cat that was supposed to be friendly – the people had even put a collar on him and a leash before they picked him up and put him in a carrier for our volunteer.  Gets to my garage – totally different behavior, hissing on the sight of me.  That happens sometimes.  He had an ear tip but a really bad eye – looked mushy.  Left on its own it might have just dried up but he looked to be in pain.  Cases like this are very difficult, ferals cannot be treated the way friendlies can – no topical meds, limited oral meds, it can be a battle.  Don't take this the wrong way but unfortunately he had nothing else wrong with him!  It was a real 50-50 situation.  I opted for eye removal, with the hope we would have a supportive relocation site available for when he healed.  Petey refused to eat on his own, we finally negotiated that I would hold his cone with my left hand while syringing a gruel of baby food and fine pate into him, while he growled and chomped on the syringe.  After a few days he would eat small amounts from the saucer overnight.  Day 8, there was an abscess behind the incision and back he went for a re-do.  Cultured the material and Bayril was the right antibiotic.  Liquid med is causing an amazing amount of drool so going back to the vet for tablets that can be crushed and mixed with a small amount of food and syringed.  Wish me luck!  He is not grateful in the slightest!  We cannot give all the cats we encounter this level of care but I am trying with Petey – one of the cats we treat "As If They Were Our Own."

Building

Despite the shut-down, we are able to do some work on the building.  IT wiring will happen very soon and we are fine-tuning the layout and changes.  We will be moving some doors and putting in new ones, taking out a wall, removing the vault – we have no idea why the building had a vault with an enormous, heavy door – like a bank!  We will be changing the types of doors on the rooms so that we will be able to see what the cats are doing before we step in, lots of changes!   Once we get a permit, double doors will be installed on the back of the building, providing easier access for cats in traps, etc.  This will entail a ramp going up to the doors from the parking lot.

We need someone experienced in rehabbing/carpentry, who can help us with these tasks.  We rely heavily on personal recommendations from our donors and volunteers, so please forward your suggestions or ask that they contact us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..  While permitting may take some time, the sooner we have someone to work with, the sooner we can make plans for this part of the process.

Microchip Wand

There's always something new!  We thought it was great when they came up with the pole microchip scanner but the round scanning end does have its issues.  Now, with this model, a cat could be scanned in almost any situation and claims to be reliable two inches away from the chip.  We get feral cats in carriers, traps, crates, and using the round scanner can have its risks.  Looks like this could be threaded into any container.  If you are looking to donate equipment, while not an emergency need, it would make our lives just that bit easier!

Food Donation Program Volunteers Needed

We receive food donations from Rescue Pack, paying only the shipping costs.  The canned and dry food is delivered to a trucking company in Carol Stream.  We also can receive litter and other supplies.  We support feral cat colonies and low-income families with limited resources.  These donations are palletized and can weigh 1,000 to 2,000lbs for each skid.  We are limited to two vehicles doing pick up on a distribution day.  We store the supplies and pass them out to the people we support.

The volunteers who have taken care of this for the last 3 years are moving out of the area and can no longer do any part of these responsibilities.  What we need:

1. Availability on a Saturday AM – sometimes due to inclement weather, distribution can get bumped to the next day. Distributions can be every one to two months depending on product availability.
2. Access to a vehicle (truck, large SUV, etc.) that can be loaded by forklift. Special arrangement needs to be made for hand loading and it really slows down their process.  They service about 90 organizations on that one day distribution.  There are truck rental companies that give us a discount on rental but we need someone comfortable driving a large delivery truck.
3. Physically able to assist with unloading.
4. Storage availability for 1 to 4 skids of canned and dry food – garage or warehouse space. Litter and other supplies could be stored elsewhere.  Arrangements can be made for recipients to come pick up same day as much as they can transport but that is not always possible.  Availability for pickup from your location at pre-arranged times by our recipients.  Our new building will not be able to hold this volume of donations and we need to have an alternative.  Unexpected donations from other sources can happen, too.
5. One person does not have to be responsible for all aspects of the program. There is usually a two-week warning of an upcoming distribution.

Due to the pandemic, we don't know when the next distribution will take place as resources are being concentrated in hot spots.

Please contact Tammy This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or 630-881-3977 if you may have the resources to take on this program in whole or a portion of it.

Finally, a reminder... April 15 is the deadline for sending in photo entries for the 2020-2021 Holiday Card Contest. As many of you know, each year Feral Fixers sends out a Holiday Greeting card to everyone on our current mailing list. Beginning with the 2012 card, the picture on the card was chosen from entries made by you, our friends and supporters. While there is no monetary prize awarded for the winning entry, the winning photographer will be credited on the Holiday card. The picture should definitely say "winter" and "outdoor cat". A shelter would be nice, but is certainly not required. We can accept pictures in nearly any format as long as the resolution is acceptable. Please send your submissions to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Good luck!

Thank you to everyone who continue support us!

Stay Safe!  Stay Healthy!

Winter Feral Cat Care

Still Not Trapping, But…

While we cannot plunge into full-fledged TNR, there have been situations that we were able and had to respond to. On 2/3, Blizzard (male, feral) went to Glen Ellyn Animal Hospital with an abscessed wound on his tail. Since he had to be sedated to care for the injury, he was neutered at the same time. He has NOT decided to be friendly but is now healed and as soon as the weather improves, will go back outside. We received a call from a guy who had gone to great lengths to care for a group of ferals – renting a garage just to house them. The landlord discovered this and said they had to go. We were contacted 4 days before the deadline. Luckily one of our volunteers had the use of space to house them temporarily. Most were able to be loaded into carriers by the caretaker, one had to be trapped. These 8 cats would sing (okay, yowl) most of the night for the first 3 nights – this happens as cats try to make themselves feel better about such a huge change. They suddenly became more settled on the 4th day, only one continuing to yell – but that seemed to be because she wanted to be petted! A man was threatening to shoot the ferals in his yard. He wasn't going to change, cats needed to be trapped and removed. They seem to come from down the street, we'll be pursuing that location as soon as we can for TNR. First cat turned out to be quite friendly, 2nd is not super feral, we'll see. On 2/16, we sent 10 cats to ADOPT, since we needed to be sure we wouldn't have to go back and eartip later if they did not become adoptable, they were all done as ferals. With these, we've done 11 cats so far in February, 15 for 2021, our grand total is 12,464! Again, we are dragging our feet on further surgeries until the weather improves around the end of March.

Honey

Another Microchips Are Forever Story – In May 2011, we removed a total of 19 cats from a trailer in Plainfield, back when we were more likely to do hoarding situations. Those cats had a range of outcomes. Some were too feral and were relocated to a pig sanctuary that needed cats to cope with mice in the grain storage area. Some went for adoption to PAWS and to PURRS, some were adoptions from Feral Fixers later in 2011. Microchips are forever and we have new information about Honey. She was adopted thru Feral Fixers. Those adopters had a life change, surrendered her to DuPage County Animal Services in May 2020. We had no place to put her (2020!) and she was transferred to Chicagoland Animal Rescue from DCAS (CAR takes in a lot of older or less easily adoptable cats from DCAS – thank you!). After a brief stay with CAR, Honey AKA Oksana was adopted by a wonderful man on 7/15/20. What a long road and we're very glad to have played a part in it!

Honey aka Oksana in her new home

Petting A Cat Releases Endorphins

We knew there was more to petting a cat than just making the CAT happy, right? Turns out it increases our endorphins, making US happy, too! Does having one cat make us want more because of our physical response?

More SNOW!

I will admit to wanting more snow than in previous years so that we could have some great candidates for our Holiday card this year. I did not ask for this much, I'm sure of it! Please don't waste this opportunity to catch pictures of your ferals and have the opportunity to share your special feral with thousands of others! Please send your high definition, clear photo to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. by April 15th – the deadline will be here before you know it! Make sure we can see the eartip and there is some snow in the pic, our only criteria!