Clicker, Clara, Wil Shrimpy, D P Coal, D P Oreon, D P Justine, D P ACDC, D P Fog, Bat Kid, Bat Kiss, L G Blackie, Fair View, Fair Way, Fair Field, Fair Lady, Fair Haven, Fair Ness, Fair Wood, Swiftly, Liz's Meow, Liz's OJ, Liz's Sweetie, Liz's O B 1, Bonnie's Little, A Precious, A Presto, Med Boy, Medster, Cross Post, Cross

The above are the 32 cats that traveled to the PAWS Lurie Family Spay Neuter Clinic on October 16th in celebration of National Feral Cat Day. While they traveled from my garage on that day, in the previous two days they came from: Keeneyville, Darien, DesPlaines, Batavia, WillowSprings, Downers Grove, Lombard, Naperville, Elgin, Addison, Medinah and Wheaton. Some of these town names may be unfamiliar to you, tiny municipalities that they are, they still have feral cats. And, yes, Feral Fixers is based in DuPage County and is trying to concentrate in DuPage County, but when someone calls and they have cats and need help quickly, we can’t turn them away.

[flickr photo=3190887262 align=right hspace=5]Three of the cats were what we call “friendlies.” Adoptable, hoping to get into a shelter. One of the ferals, Swifty, announced his willingness to be a “friendly” after he was neutered as a feral, a good thing, too, as he seems to have a problem with dry food or any food that has grains and who knows how long he would have survived outside? Most of the food that caretakers can afford does have a high amount of grain. He’s going for longer and longer periods without throwing up and we hope he will be in a foster and on to adoption soon. Having ferals turn out to be friendly is wonderful, but a huge responsibility, too. We simply do not have the resources for the number of cats that are turning out to be tameable. Some day, all cats will be wanted, and this will be much easier.

Several of the groups of cats came from first time trappers. We try to enlist the aid of the caretakers themselves. They have the greatest likelihood of success, the cats know them, their sounds, their smells and will still come around even if their caretakers insist on putting dinner inside this strange metal object (i.e. a trap!). We had planned on 25 cats that day and I was worried that we would not make our target, and then the cats just kept coming in! That can happen; on the day with the worst weather, cats can seem to jump in the traps, while on a balmy, nice day, no action whatsoever. We could not be helping so many cats without so many dedicated caretakers!

You might be curious as to how such a large number of cats is processed.

[flickr photo=3190041369 align=left hspace=5]A month before NFC Day, we reserved space at PAWS, asking for a minimum of 25 slots. Once approval was given, we started scheduling, returning the many phone calls, holding some sites back for that day. In the week before, we passed out traps, trained caretakers, everyone set up their schedules to have time to trap their ferals, transport them to us if they were able. We started picking up and receiving cats on the 14th and the last one came in around 10 PM on the 15th. Each cat gets a name that helps us identify where it came from, a microchip assigned to it, and we fill out check in forms to help PAWS’ staff with data entry.

October 16th, 6 A.M. -  Loading up!  We have a wonderful volunteer who loans us her van when we have large loads of cats and another who is willing to drive into PAWS constantly. We are so lucky! Try as we might that day, we were only able to fit 28 cats in that van, so we had to take a second vehicle!

The trip into PAWS was uneventful, and we got parking places in front of the building! Yea!!!

[flickr photo=3190042123 align=right hspace=5]And, there were other feral “people” there besides us, now I’m drawing a blank, but I think there were 15 more – fabulous for National Feral Cat Day!

Checking in went very smoothly, the vet on duty saw our friendlies and we were on our way back home, to return later that day to pick up our felines, where once again we got great parking spaces!

The cats returned back to my garage to spend the night and then go home the following day, neutered, vaccinated and ready to live out the rest of their lives in the place they are comfortable. Of the 32 cats, 19 were females.

I’m very glad we were able to make such a significant contribution on this day! And, I’m very, very, glad that we have such wonderful volunteers and caretakers who made this possible!

So often in TNR you hear about locations that “have lots of cats” and no dedicated caretaker. It can be so difficult to work on those locations without interaction with a dedicated caretaker, very often when you finally get there, it can be quite an endeavor!

Such was the case with a local health care facility. When we evaluated it, it seemed that the cats would never stop! And we knew we had to work on this location as soon as possible because the cats were mostly TORTIES! And you know, torties mean KITTENS!

The first trapping resulted in a trip to PAWS on June 15th with: Aldana, Alday, Alden, Alder, Aldi, Aldine, and Aldo = 7 cats. 4 females.

The second trapping netted us: Blackie, Bubba, Jet, Kitty, Left Foot, Neon, Orange, Peter, Pumpkin, Toast who were spayed and neutered on June 22nd for a total of 11 cats, 5 females.

These were followed by Mudd (male), Swirl (female) and Mama on June 29th, only Mama wasn’t a mama when she was trapped, but did produce 4 kittens before we could get her to the clinic.

Have you been paying attention? So far, 21 adults, 4 kittens.

One thing we noticed about these cats was the aroma of their feces – a very chemically smell. Pardon me for being indelicate but we try to pay attention to the health of the ferals while they are in our care and this was very unusual. We were worried that the cats were not getting enough “cat” food – the residents were feeding them from the cafeteria. We were worried that the cats were dumpster diving in some really unsavory stuff. We decided to provide cat food so that their diets would have the correct nutrients to keep them in good health. So far, this seems to be working. One of our volunteers stops every day to feed them. The residents are still able to watch them – they find the cats very entertaining!

Mama was a very good mama, but the odds did not work out in favor of her litter. Those of us who do TNR know that litters of kittens quite often have a 75% fatality rate – that is one of the things we are working to prevent. The food that Mama was eating may have played a big part in Alyas (male) being the only surviving kitten of her litter. Mama was spayed on August 3rd and returned to her colony soon after. Alyas was fostered, was a wonderful kitten, neutered on September 18th and went to PURRS of Naperville for adoption soon after.

So what’s our tally? 21 adults tnr’d and returned to the colony.

Rumors surfaced of the ones that we did not get and once again we trapped. We nabbed Soot, Coal, Buddy, Carmel and Cinder – all neutered on November 25th – 4 females and a male. Carmel (female) and Cinder (male) were about 11 weeks old, they are now in foster, hopefully will become tame enough to go on to be adopted thru PURRS. Since they were older than the usual minimum age for taming, they have an eartip, just in case they need to go back to their colony.

There may still be a total of 4 cats still out there but with the winter blowing in full force, we will have to wait until Spring to get those guys, but with the close attention our dedicated volunteer pays, it should be a lot easier now!

So, that’s 24 cats returned, 1 adoption, 2 fostered, 4 more outstanding.

As I said, this is a health care facility. Typically these locations want the cats gone, get rid of them, they are dangerous to everyone, get them out of here or we will do it for you! Not so, this time. The administrator was very kind, loves animals, saw no reason for the cats to have to go, since they did not belong to the facility, she saw no reason for us not to take care of them. I told her what a truly unique person she was and thanked her many times over. They have even allowed us to put shelters on the grounds so that the cats can keep warm during the winter!

The one thing that we have not received is money. Since the cats do not belong to the facility, there is probably no money in the budget to make a donation to cover the costs we have incurred. I plan on making a report to the administrator now that we are so close to finishing the colony, but have no real hope that she will be able to direct funds our way. Times are hard. The residents are for the most part on state aid, they have little money of their own.

When you think of how many kittens could have been produced in the past 5 months from the (minimum) 15 females, Feral Fixers is glad to have been able to help! We’ve been able to improve their health and their living conditions while allowing them to live where they have chosen.

Please think about this healthy colony when you are making your year-end donations, it's as simple as clicking on our PayPal button!

Thank you so much to all of you who have already donated and have helped us help so many cats!

 We wish you all a Wonderful Holiday Season!