Building – Huge Changes!

Huge changes at the building! Double doors have been installed at the rear wall to allow easier entry to the TNR room and storage – traps & supplies do not have to be moved thru the building using the other entrances. All of the floor demolition has been done, pipes installed, new flooring in almost all the rooms – wooden flooring in the common areas, epoxy poured floor in TNR and laundry area. Preliminary painting has been done! So much yet to do but we're getting there! We couldn't do this without your donations, please continue to support this huge change for Feral Fixers! 

The new double doors have been installed at the back of the building. The picture on the left shows the start of the demo while the picture on the right shows the framing for the door. There will be a ramp installed along the sidewalk to allow easier access to the North side of the building and TNR room.

It still looks rough around the edges - moulding yet to be done, but flooring (pictures on the left and in the middle) in and 1st coat of paint! The picture on the right shows the new epoxy/poured floor in TNR and laundry rooms - this was poured in just the last few days!

Trap Security

From blog posts around the country and beyond, many trappers encounter ferals escaping from traps. Here is how we have resolved some of those issues:

HavAHart traps can have a flimsy trap door that can be drawn in towards the cat and the cat presses on the door, raises it and gets out. 10lb+ cats need extra security! Placing something as simple as a tent stake thru the mesh in front of the door brace prevents it from moving backwards and allowing the door to lift.

TruCatch traps will open when rolled over. Also, cats can draw in towels, newspaper and plastic covering tables to raise the rings holding the back door down. A clip on a chain will hold one end closed – caribiners get lost so easily. A twist of wire thru the rings and the frame will hold the back door in place. These changes would add so much to the purchase costs but are a very inexpensive fix for us to do "aftermarket."

TruCatch and HavAHart traps with "aftermarket upgrades" applied.

Ways To Donate

We received another AmazonSmile quarterly donation of $311! Purchases made thru AmazonSmile with Feral Fixers as the designated charity results in .5% being contributed to us! It may not sound like a lot, $62,000 was spent to get us that $311 but it is one of the easiest ways to raise funds – you're going to make the purchase anyway, why shouldn't something go to charity? Once the building is up and running our Amazon Wish List will grow but donations made from the list thru AmazonSmile benefits us doubly!

It is becoming easier and easier to set up a monthly donation, thru PayPal or your bank and we receive many this way and rely on that continued support in order to budget for the future. Many thanks to our monthly donors.

Our newest fundraiser is As If They Were Our Own. This fundraiser helps us to support the cats that have no caretakers or even if they have caretakers, they don't have the hundreds of dollars it takes to heal the injuries and illnesses that these ferals and strays show up with. Some kittens have issues that can be resolved with a surgery and they can go on to live full, long lives. Those funds have to come from somewhere. We currently have $3,500 to be matched, we would love to have more donors contribute funds to be matched. Our fundraiser Giving Grid can be accessed here and the preliminary goal will be to match the $3,500 between now and October 16th (which is National Feral Cat Day). Donations have been slower, we haven't had in-person events, we are hoping this fundraiser will be a huge success! The cats count on us for care – even if its some antibiotics to get them thru an upper respiratory to an eye removal when the eye is not going to heal! Keep posted!

Time Is Just Flying By!

Things are working out that we are making multiple trips in a week – due to s/n availability or trapping availability or just the weather! As a result, working harder than last year, looking forward to Winter! We've taken in so many kittens, helped so many injured cats. People are contacting us because other organizations have severely limited their response. Have to keep reminding ourselves that there is only so much we can do, our resources have not expanded while the work has. We neutered 89 cats in August, 23 so far in September for a total for the year of 441 and 12,126 since our beginning in 2007. October is usually our busiest month as caretakers want to get TNR done before it gets too cold. Back in November of 2019, we announced that the last s/n trip for ferals for 2020 would be 10/29/20. We're going to stick with that. We never know what the weather is going to do these days and we need to be sure we do not cause more harm than good! Let's do our best! 

 

Two loads of cats sent to DuPage County Animal Services. The batch on the left is 24 cats sent in on August 6th while the batch on the right is 23 cats sent in on August 10th.

 

We've had a couple of polydactyl cats recently! A picture of one of them is on the left, while the picture on the right is of five cats sent to ADOPT on 9/1 (only five, but important to them!).

(Clicking on any of the picture thumbnails will display a larger version of the picture)

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