• 4/19/22 DCAS, 2 ferals, 1 friendly, 3 males. Bixby is another 9-month-old from a location where the cats are turning friendly.
• 4/22/22 ADOPT, 1 feral male.

This brings us to 41 for April, 81 for 2022 and 13,295 since our start. Rain was not our friend this week! Slots went unused ☹.

TNR Workshop – May 1^st – Don't Forget!

Still on for the TNR Workshop on Sunday, May 1st at our building, 330 Eisenhower Ln N, Lombard, from 1pm to 3pm. We will do a demonstration of different traps, equipment, methods and answer questions. Masks optional, may change to required if positivity rates change. Learn to trap! Visit our Facebook Event announcement here, learn more about the workshop and tell us if you're going to attend.

Fund Our Ferals Future

Fund Our Ferals Future Giving Grid Campaign kicks off on May 1st and ends May 31st. We have two projects we would like to pursue:

• Replacing our parking lot! The snow plow has been having quite a battle with the uneven pavement and holes!
• The back steps to the single door are an awkward height and its hard to get in the door if you are carrying anything – need more space and probably a railing.

Just these two items could take quite a chunk of money! We still have to get firm quotes.

We have $18,000 in pledges to be matched, we can get quite a lot done with that! Please help us to continue to make improvements, make our building safer!

More Pictures!

The first two are part of the 12 pallets of donated litter we received from Cats Pride. This was noted in the last newsletter/post but pictures weren't available 'til now.

And the last picture is a load of mulch from Dawson's Tree Service - thank you! - that is subsequently being spread around the property by volunteers - thank all of you too!

Cases of Litter donated from Cats Pride - again, thanks to CTMechanical for storing it for us!

Mulch donated from Dawson's Tree Service and spread by volunteers!

(Click on any of the picture thumbnails to see a full-size version of the picture)

It is not ideal to do multiple s/n trips in a week, very tiring, but you do what you gotta do.

• 4/1 ADOPT, 1 friendly, 6 feral, 3 males, 4 females
• 4/8 ADOPT, 1 friendly, 8 feral, 2 males, 7 females
• 4/12 DCAS, 3 ferals, 2 male, 1 female. Jacque was in this trip – he needed intervention!
• 4/14 DCAS, 5 ferals, 2 male, 3 female. Switch at the last-minute do to one female having a Blessed Event – Birdie had 4 kittens!
• 4/15 DCAS, 1 feral male. Bistro put us over our limit at ADOPT and couldn't wait a week.
• 4/15 ADOPT, 12 ferals, 7 male, 5 female. Supposed to only have 10.

Many thanks to ADOPT for letting us go a cat or two over our estimate and for DCAS fitting us into their normal workday so we could get these cats processed! We have been dragging our feet since the overnight temperatures are still pretty cold, but the cats are not paying any attention! This brings us to a total of 37 for April, a 2022 total of 77 and 13,291 since our start in 2007. We are at 27 newly born kittens, can always use mom & babies fosters!

7 for April 1st!		Took time to sweep the floor before pic!  4/8 trip to ADOPT!

Cats that came back from 12th and 14th trips and awaiting 4/15 trip		Back to double-stacking

Around The Building

Load of mulch delivered this week – thank you to Dawsons Tree Service! – planning on Saturday, 4/23 for spreading the wood chips – let us know if you can help on this or another landscape project! Also, the semitrucks have been gouging out the parkway on the North side – looks like we need more boulders. Happy to adopt more for our border to protect our landscape, we can get them moved into place.

Rescue Pack had freebies this month.  We received 30 medium beds which filled Tammy's Element, most went to storage unit.

TNR Workshop – May 1^st – Don't Forget!

We've had TNR workshops in the past but have had to rent a location, etc., and then, of course the pandemic!

We will be hosting a TNR Workshop on Sunday, May 1st at our building, 330 Eisenhower Ln N, Lombard, from 1pm to 3pm. We will do a short demonstration of different traps, equipment, methods and answer questions. Masks optional, may change to required if positivity rates change. We'd love to share our experience with you!

Litter For Good!

Wonder what happens when you designate Feral Fixers to receive litter from Cat's Pride? And then a pandemic and rising gasoline costs delay distribution a bit – 12 skids of litter show up at once! Thank you all for nominating Feral Fixers! We have to use clay litter for all the kittens in foster and Cat's Pride is kind enough to listen to our needs and send us clay. Huge thank you to CTMechanical in Addison for storing our supply – no way it could fit in our building!!! It will be interesting if this year's kitten volume will use it all! Keep on nominating us – you never know how many kittens will show up!

Birdie and her newborns Born 4/13

Time For a New Feral Fixers Vehicle

Our Transit lost its transmission battle and is no more. The Transit Connect is just the best all-round vehicle for us and we want to get another – the only vehicle we will consider. Would prefer a gently used one but will cope with a new one if we have to (have you noticed how new vehicles seem to attract damage?). Both new and used are in short supply, as is our time for shopping. This is just in case our donors may know of someone who wants to divest themselves of a Transit Connect – many businesses are down-sizing, etc. I believe that if you don't ask, you don't get!

Working Cats

Our Working Cats Program is busy! As people have a chance to go out to their barns, sheds and warehouses this Spring, they are finding mice have moved in! We appreciate the opportunity to relocate cats to these sites when it has become risky for the cats to stay where they are. Definitely not the first option we consider but caretakers move, buildings get knocked down, intolerant neighbors move in, etc. We do need to spread the word regarding Working Cats – this past week a cat was turned into Animal Control for the second time as the neighbor wanted to "save" him yet again. While Phillie likes to be petted, he will get overstimulated and nip, does NOT want to stay inside and enjoys his job of eliminating the rodents in the area. Cats are individuals and the repercussions of forcing them to accept our ideals of how cats should be can be really bad! If you know someone with a rodent situation, contact us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. !

2022 For Love Of Cats Raffle

Thank you to everyone who participated in the 2022 For The Love Of Cats Raffle! We had 2 more raffle items than last year and our participants doubled. Thank you all so much! We wish we could give everyone a prize!

Winners were:     

Jacque

Jacque has long hair - his entire back was one huge mat and came off in one piece

Jacque - giving a crate a try		It is kinda scary in here

Being held for the first time went pretty well!		Jacque - liking the touching!

Prepare For the Future

Grandma brought a kitten in 10 years ago, Grandma has passed, what do we do? No, Kitten is not very friendly, in good health because she eats and poops and plays. No, Kitten hasn't been to the vet as far as we know, yeah, maybe never. Well, if we sit down and are very quiet, Kitten will come sit by us. There was a dog in the house, they didn't fight but they weren't buddies. We've been going over and feeding and scooping for the last month since Grandma passed. No, we cannot stand if Kitten gets euthanized, that is too much for us to bear. Oh, yeah, maybe she bit Grandma once or twice, but it wasn't bad.

Response: This is a cat that has been in a quiet household for 10 years, has had no boundaries and expects that life to go on as it has for the last 10 years. If a duplicate household can be found, great! If the callers are unable to take this cat into their own household and give it a room of its own for at least a trial period, this is going to be an unhappy cat, wherever it goes. No responsible shelter could take it – there are too many highly adoptable cats waiting for homes now. It has absolutely no skills so cannot be relocated outside – a quiet office type business would be the only option in that direction, and they would have to have very few employees, no chaos. Miracles do happen and networking between Next Door, vet's offices, neighbors, might result in a solution. If the relatives cannot bear for the cat to be euthanized, they must take responsibility for that decision and provide support – their own home or finding it a suitable home replacement. The first step would be to take the cat to the vet to be evaluated – 10-year-old cats have a high probability of health issues so a blood test and a dental exam are a high priority – appearances are not always a good indicator of what a cat may be hiding.

If you are planning for your future and you have pets, you MUST consider what will happen to and for them when you are no longer in charge of their care. If you are helping a friend or relative plan their future, the pets MUST be included. People age and it is not always recognized that they might not be making the best decisions. That's when your Aunt or Grandma lets that stray cat in her door to get out of the cold and that stray promptly gives birth to 6 kittens. All the cats may stay feral and must be trapped in the house to be removed when Auntie goes to Assisted Living. It is a scenario we have heard over and over and there needs to be more information, more emphasis to social workers, estate planners, counselors that these decisions have to be made earlier, not later. So much more important than who gets the house, but what happens to the living creatures in that house once Auntie lives somewhere else.

This is not a warm, fuzzy story but instead an alert to the realities of what families and rescues are dealing with way too late and in an emergency. There are rescues that deal with older animals, they are overcrowded and I have heard that none can take in a cat over 10 yrs old, there are not enough adoptive homes for that segment of the population. It isn't that they don't care, don't want to help, resources are limited and a line has to be drawn somewhere.

Plan, reach out to your fellow pet lovers, check in on Aunt, take in an older cat yourselves if you can!

This is Marvel with the injured foot, he had punctures on side and bottom of foot, cleaned up and given antibiotics, happy to go back home after being held for a week

Rethinking the Animal Shelter's Role in Free-Roaming Cat Management

The title of this article alone can be intimidating but this is worth the read. An increasing number of studies have been done to find the best resolution in feral cat management. With emphasis on 'shelters', meaning 'animal control' to most of us, it details how removal and euthanasia simply does not work, yet targeting areas, trapping, neutering and RETURNING has many benefits. Limiting growth of the population, increasing the health of the population, reducing the stress on animal controls, allocating funds to lasting solutions, finally research is being done. Please take the time to look this over and share. This is an encouraging article!

Estimate of the number of cats in the United States with outdoor access and the number and outcome of cats taken in by animal shelters. Approximately 33% of an estimated 79 million owned pet cats are allowed outdoors at least some of the time. The number of unowned free-roaming cats has been estimated at 30-80 million, so a mid-point of 55 million was used. In this example, almost one-third of outdoor cats are owned pets, two-thirds are un-owned free-roaming cats, and <3% are managed by animal shelters.

"If I Win The Lotto…"

Besides people very generously saying that "If I win the lotto, I'm going to donate it to Feral Fixers", they also say that they would open a cat sanctuary. This is Cat House On The Kings in California. What you don't see in the video: Every morning the staff prepares food that is hand-delivered to every feeding station and room/cage. It takes six people two hours to prepare the food and deliver it throughout the 12 acres. Every cage, room and kennel receives a special diet. The majority of the animals receive a mix of L-Lysine, granulated garlic and brewer's yeast mixed with beef or chicken canned and dry food. They support 700+ cats at any given time.

Operator error can result in a trap not being secured - this guy spent the night out in TNR. Was not interested in going in trap again on his own. Never happens, but was able to get him into a transfer trap by squishing him into it against the wall - told him he was going home that afternoon but the only way was if he went in!

TNR Workshop – May 1st

We've had TNR workshops in the past but have had to rent a location, etc., and then, of course the pandemic!

We will be hosting a TNR Workshop on Sunday, May 1st at our building, 330 Eisenhower Ln N, Lombard, from 1pm to 3pm. We will do a short demonstration of different traps, equipment, methods and answer questions. Masks optional, may change to required if positivity rates change. We'd love to share our experience with you!

Ferals can be very efficient at producing shreds!		Why is there always something on the floor when we take a picture?

So Far This Year

So far this year we've finished the cats at the car paint shop, some cats that were clearly in need and a couple injured cats. All went inside or had really good shelters to go back to. All but two were neutered at ADOPT.

• On 2/10, one feral male
• On 2/18, 3 ferals, 2 male, 1 female
• On 3/3, 2 feral females
• On 3/10, 4 feral males
• On 3/17, 2 friendly, 4 feral, of which 2 male, 4 female
• Also on 3/17, 1 feral male with an injured front foot was neutered by DCAS
• On 3/21, 1 friendly female was spayed and had a tail amputation at DCAS.

Finishing up the month, 2 friendlies and 5 ferals went to ADOPT. One of the ferals had already been neutered, resulting in 5 males and 1 female.

This brings us to a total of 6 for February and 20 for March, a 2022 total of 40 and 13,254 since our start in 2007. So far, we've had two litters born to moms, if you are thinking about fostering, please get in touch!

These four were born to a feral mom on Sunday, 3 boys and a girl. Will be off to foster, soonest!		Seanna is definitely feral but taking great care of her babies on Day Two!

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!