Feral Fixers used to have 20 to 30 spay/neuter slots available each and every week between the two clinics we use. Now, we usually have 10 at one location and sometimes can come up with another five at the other and we’ve been tremendously lucky to have mega days. Just not the same as being able to plan ahead and KNOW when trapping was possible with consistently available spay/neuter slots. I told about the lack of veterinarians in the last blog post. In the coming week we have 10 slots available and 23 kittens of neutering age. That does not include any ferals. The clinics are doing their best. Other TNR groups and shelters are competing across the board. You can suggest we go back to trekking into Chicago – that’s another thing – risks are high driving in Chicago. And they are all booked solid as well.

There’s a hope for another vet in mid-August, a facility may open more space soon – but that town has a terrible history of dragging its feet on permit approval, it goes on and on.

Our fosters are going to be frustrated as they wait for their kittens to be neutered, our feral cat caretakers will be watching the pregnant females give birth with no recourse, kittens will age out of being tameable with no surgery slots.

My goal is to fix problems and we’ve been doing very well to date, but we just didn’t know how good we had it! All those people who called in good faith that we would get to their cats and kittens, we may not make it. Everyone in Rescue is stressed right now. If we don’t call back, if we have to tell you we just can’t do it, please understand. Be assured, we are doing the best we can. Today, someone trapped a female while trying to get a kitten, we are not going to release her, we’ll be trying to spay her this week. One of her kittens has already been trapped – although at least 14 weeks old, he was enjoying being petted yesterday. They just keep coming!

If you are the Mega Millions winner here in Illinois, think about helping fund spay/neuter! Support the education and employment of veterinarians that are experienced in high volume s/n, close by, working every day they can.

We try so very hard to not be negative but geez! When are things going to get better?

July Finals

We’ve made two trips this week, taking advantage of every opportunity we can.

• On July 26 we sent 5 friendly kittens in to DCAS, 3 males, 2 females.
• On July 29, we sent 10 friendly kittens in to ADOPT, 4 males and 6 females.

This brings our July total to 101, our total for the year to 356 and 13,570 is our total since our start in 2007. If just half of that grand total were female and each went on to have just one litter of four, that means a minimum of 27,000 births prevented in that time.

"It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love, is well done." - Vincent van Gogh

YaYa, Yahtzee & Yamaha - soon after they came in - doin' great in foster! Scheduled to be at 7/30 Adoption Event		This is Chessie - had a bot in his neck and his eye! Both removed, happy paws and demanding attention now!

Thea was nabbed because she maybe had an eye infection, even tho she was still nursing at about 4 weeks. Kittens get gunky eyes when under stress - looks good now and she is eating a mixture of KMR and kitten canned on her own!

Thea playing with toys, moved to CiT and bigger cage now!