5/7/24 – GEAH – 1 friendly female – Patty Cake is fully recovered from her PRAA surgery – Persistent Right Aortic Arch – in which an artery that normally disappears as the kitten ages, may sometimes encircle the esophagus must be surgically removed to resolve.  - as rescues are able to care for more and more kittens, this condition seems to be found more often. Patty Cake is our second kitten with PRAA.

5/7/24 – DCAS – 3 friendlies, one female, 2 males. This friendly family was found on the street – too many friendlies are showing up these days!

5/9/24 – DCAS – 7 ferals, 4 female, 3 male.

5/10/24 ADOPT – 6 ferals, 2 female, 4 male. One male was chipped but never neutered – the owners could not afford to neuter both him and his sister so they spayed the female, he got out a year ago. Another feral had a right ear tip turns out, neutered in 2013, amazingly, despite being over 11 years old, he is in remarkably good shape!

Total: 41 cats for May, 191 for 2024 and 15,071 to date.

We are doing our best to TNR as many cats as possible so that we don’t have to work so hard in the future!

Cat trapped 4/29/24 - Monday morning for 5/2/24 trip! The cats are moving around this Spring!

At times we are just too busy in the AM to take pictures before the cats go out the door. Here they are getting fed after surgery. Crates have kittens that are awaiting their next step to Cats in Transition for more interaction and then off to foster and adoption!

As Many as Possible As Soon As Possible

04/11/24 – DCAS – 17 ferals, 1 friendly, 2 ferals already spayed, 1 male already neutered, resulting in 4 males, 11 females – some small eartips at previous surgeries!

Poppi came in completely covered in mats.  He was so happy to be shaved when he was neutered 4/11!  He is now in foster!

4/23/24 – ADOPT – 9 ferals, 1 friendly, 4 males, 6 females.  ADOPT kept one female for adoption!

TNR room has cats that came back from 4/23 and cats that are waiting for their s/n on 4/25.

4/25/24 – DCAS – 25 ferals, 14 males, 11 females, one male already neutered, had been relocated by another organization that unfortunately did not eartip.

#15,000 was in this trip!  Revenue is an orange tabby/white and comes from a location that we tnr’d 3 cats in 2013 and just a few doors away, between 2015 and now, another 42 cats and kittens.  Unless we get that last cat, so many locations can be ongoing.  This one is close to parks and dense neighborhoods but we will not give up!

Many thanks to DCAS and Dr. Turner for helping us to achieve our 15,000 s/n surgery!

Total:  61 cats for April, 150 for 2024 and 15,030 to date!

These 7 week old kittens came in and ADOPT was kind enough to accept them for adoption!

3/14/24 – ADOPT – 12 ferals, 6 male, 6 female.

3/14/24 – DCAS – 1 feral male.

3/21/24 – DCAS – 15 ferals, 8 males (1 already neutered), 7 females. The already neutered male was part of another Barn Cat program and had left his relocation site, we are working on relocating him yet again.

3/28/24 – DCAS – 14 ferals, 7 males (1 already neutered), 7 females.

4/4/24 – DCAS – 5 friendlies, 8 ferals, 8 males (1 already neutered, 1 euthanized), 5 females. Ferals can be subject to so many devastating injuries, so glad we were able to help the injured male, he was in a devastated condition.

Total: 44 cats for March, 12 cats for April, 101 for 2024 and 14,981 to date!!!

We do not have s/n slots next week so perhaps we will reach 15,000 on 4/25!

Cats from 3/21 trip.		Looks quiet and surreal, doesn't it? People are so surprised at how quiet ferals can be! 3/28/24.

2023 – What A Year

The challenges have been immense. 

Kitten numbers have increased dramatically –societal changes may be the biggest impact: lack of vet access, money, movement of our population – combining households, isolation and hoarding, etc. People are actually paying more attention to the cats outside and are discovering the pregnant cat, the litter of kittens much more readily than in the past which results in overall increased volume that we are contacted about. Every shelter is full. Everyone is doing their best to save every cat they can. Adults and kittens are becoming friendly at an increased pace. Years ago, a feral was a feral was a feral. Not anymore. Kittens sometimes are friendly from the time they are trapped, adults will have a complete turnaround to being friendly. National organizations are seeing this and the only advice they can offer is that even if a cat is friendly, put it back outside – there just aren’t enough homes.

Volunteers. The data can be looked at in many different ways, but finding information that DuPage County ranked 2^nd in 102 Illinois Counties of charities per square mile illustrates why it is so difficult finding and maintaining volunteers. No one seems to have as much time as we used to. There are so many choices of where to spend that valuable volunteer time. Our lives can change in an instant and our personal responsibilities must take priority. Feral Fixers has wonderful volunteers, and we treasure them every day. We need more, the volunteer staff is not a constant and can change quickly. From trapping to transport, fostering and shifts of cat care at the building, cleaning – oh my, the cleaning! We do need volunteers who can snuggle kittens just as much as we need those who can sweep floors and do laundry. Social people who can interact with adopters on adoption days, help with events, host events! Everyone has their own strengths and abilities, please share them with us!

Need everywhere. We can average five calls a day for help.

*Discovered kittens under the shed, come help. *My mother let a pregnant cat into her house, come trap and take the kittens. *My cat has lost its mind and is attacking me, help. *I have 15 cats in and around my house (usually results in 60+ cats). *I live outside your area, but I can bring the cats to you. *Been feeding a cat for 2 years, not neutered, now he’s injured from fighting, come help. On social media, you may often see “call Feral Fixers, they will help you” and we do help so many!

With all these challenges we must remember the impact we have had, can you imagine how many cats would be roaming the streets, producing more and more, the suffering we have alleviated, feline and human alike! We have much more work to do but what a difference has been accomplished! 

You - donors, volunteers, caretakers, are all responsible for the huge difference Feral Fixers has achieved in the last 16+ years!

What Can We Expect In 2023?

We continue to face the unknown. Who could have expected that across the nation, we are short 15,000 veterinarians? Who could have expected that our nation could be short millions of spay/neuter surgeries? So many different factors are affecting daily lives, it will be interesting to see the impact on cats outdoors, how many kittens will be born to these unneutered females still roaming that no one was able to get to. Prices have gone up for cat food, cat litter, gasoline to take them to appointments & adoptions, and on and on. What can we do? We can continue to get as many spay/neuter appointments as we possibly can and to FILL those appointments, making caretakers aware that they must contact us as soon as a cat is consistent in attendance. It is the ONLY way to lower costs in the future. Once those kittens arrive, we will care for them, using resources for current day expenses, not for preventing even greater expenditures in the future – that is unsustainable and returns us to the past when feral cats were euthanized regularly.

Trapping will resume around the end of March, beginning of April. Keep an eye out for ferals in your area, talk to your neighbors, help us help you to care for those cats.

What Can You Do?

The Amazon Smile donation in November, which covered purchases made between July 1, 2022, and September 30, 2022, came to $606.70. That means that our donors spent $121,340 in that time period and .5% was donated by Amazon Smile – Yay! Use AmazonSmile and designate Feral Fixers – could not be an easier way to raise funds!

Visit our wish lists at Amazon & Chewy – we always need food; canned food in particular goes fast when you are supporting so MANY kittens! Gift cards allow us to purchase what our greatest need at the time is – paper towels, bleach, laundry detergent, litter boxes – amazing the variety of things we purchase to keep going! 

Spread our information to coworkers, family, social media – we have donors across the country! Cats have a ripple effect, they don’t stay in one place and affect wider resources than those on their street, in their town, in their county – even in their state! New people are volunteering with us due to sharing information, but we need more volunteers, many more. Trappers, transporters, cleaners in the building, animal care in the building, fosters, event volunteers, the list goes on. You tell us what you want to do to help, and we try to make that fit for both of our benefits!

Frosty Claws in 2023 

We seem to be returning to some degree of normalcy. As a result, we will be holding our 2023 Frosty Claws on Sunday, January 15^th from 12 noon to 4pm at the Villa Park VFW. We may have huge attendance that day because of skipping years, please be patient. This is an event for our caretakers, adopters, donors, to talk about cats and network with some fundraising and food. We are about to start assembling our Silent Auction and door prize items – we may not have as much “stuff” as in previous years – we will post items as they are created, as soon as we have a chance. We look forward to seeing everyone who can attend!

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!