Working Cats
Meet a recent working cat alumni, Gizmo. He's employed at the Ace Hardware on Westmore-Myers Road in Lombard. Gizmo was a semi-friendly cat who had been up for adoption at Aurora Animal control but was not doing well on the Adoption floor. We were able to help him through the Feral Fixers Working Cat Program, and he is the new resident mouser for Ace!
Cats that cannot go back to their location and are not adoptable go to Working Cat sites that may be farms, barns, offices, warehouses - even a restaurant with outdoor dining! They provide rodent and pest control in exchange for food and shelter.
Working cats come in all shapes and sizes, and we try to find the best match for cats and people! If you'd like reliable rodent control, email Laura at
Stop in and say HI! to Gizmo.
Thank you for caring, and Happy New Year!
You can view a Facebook video of Gizmo riding a broom here.
TNR Workshop
Sunday, January 25th, 12 noon at Feral Fixers, 330 Eisenhower Ln N, Lombard IL.
Learn how to trap and care for ferals in your yard. Would you like to become a Feral Fixers trapper? We'll have various traps on hand to demonstrate and be able to answer your questions about what to do before and after trapping! We need to start trapping as soon as the weather allows - come learn the basics! Make a difference for your yard, your neighborhood and for all the cats in the area!
Winter Cat Care
We don't know what the weather will be in the coming months! Be prepared, feral cats need extra care available to them. Some of our favorite websites to help ferals make it thru the winter:
And the ASPCA
Why Shelters? While cats are often great at finding shelter on their own, this can lead them to places that might be dangerous for them (warm car engines) or areas where the property owners don’t want them (basements, boiler rooms. Other times, there’s just no sufficient option for them. These are all reasons providing an insulated shelter (if you have the property ownership or permission) is a great idea for community cats in cold climates…Why Food and Water? Feeding a measured amount of food is a key to responsibly managing feral cat colonies and this doesn’t change in the winter! What does change is that everything freezes quickly!
More information is available on our website.
Want to help?
Interested in helping Feral Fixers? We are looking for a 'few good volunteers'! Specifically, we need transporters, fosters, people to do laundry, scrub traps and cages, help with for s/n trips and recovery.
We need transport help both in the morning and the afternoon. If you're interested in helping, call us at (630) 881-7459 or email us at
Check us out on the Web!
On our website, you can donate to us (via PayPal or credit card or Zelle), find out about all the ways you can help Feral Fixers, visit our store, read the latest news, and learn more about feral cats. You can see our list of Adoptable cats, follow the ‘running total’ of how many cats we’ve had spayed/neutered, see the current list of Upcoming Events, check out past years Archived articles, read about our Friends and Partners, sign up for our mailing list and much, much more!
We also have very active Facebook, X.com (formerly Twitter), and Instagram pages and recently TikTok. From these pages, you can get the latest information about what we are doing - often before it shows up on the blog! Links for all these pages are on our website home page. And don't forget to "Like" us on Facebook and the good karma will surely flow your way- Thank you!
How to Help Feral Fixers
There are several ways you can help Feral Fixers:
You can BUY SOMETHING!
- You can help Feral Fixers by purchasing apparel and accessories from Animal Hearted - a percentage of these purchases is sent to Feral Fixers.
- You can purchase items on our Wish Lists from Amazon or Walmart or Chewy.com and have them directly delivered to Feral Fixers.
- You can also purchase pet supplies at discounted prices from Kuranda and scratching pads and cat toys from Imperial Cat and have them sent directly to Feral Fixers. Or you can purchase Cat Litter from Cat’s Pride and nominate us to receive free litter.
- You can purchase and donate needed supplies to us from wherever it is convenient for you to shop (a current list of supplies needed can be found on our website).
The latest and most complete instructions on how to help Feral Fixers through your shopping can be found on our website – click on the WANT TO HELP tab at the top and then click on Buy Something!
You can DONATE to us directly via PayPal or via a Credit Card or via Zelle. To do any of those, click on the DONATE link at the top of our website. This will take you to our Donation Page where you can donate either via your PayPal account or via a Credit Card (no PayPal account needed) or via Zelle. And did you know that you can set up Monthly donations via PayPal? These are wonderful for us, giving us a steady, can-count-on-it stream of income, more important than ever now to help take care of our monthly building expenses. To do so, just check the Make this a monthly donation box in the PayPal page – you can cancel it at any time.
You can also click on the QR Code here to go directly to a special PayPal Donation page.
On our Donation page, we’ve also included documentation on how to donate to us via Stock Donations or Direct Wire Transfers and Workplace giving and matching donations. And finally, should you be so inclined, we’ve included documentation on how you can donate to us with Estate Planning / Legacy donations.
Matching Funds
Switched jobs or your employer has had Human Resources changes? Check to see if there is a Matching Funds Program! Some companies have started doubling the original employee donation! A very large number of companies already have a matching funds option, and more are being added all the time. The National Runaway foundation keeps a list of these companies which you can access here.
More information about how you can help Feral Fixers by participating in any of these programs can be found on our website donation page - Thank you!
Have you seen our Adoptables?
We’d like to share a few of our special cats that are up for adoption. So many adopters focus on kittens and do not realize the value of bringing an older kitten or an adult into their home. Here is the background on six of these felines. Except for Logan, these are all brown tabbies – a much more dominant coat color in the cat population this year – are genes changing in the cat population? These are all wonderful cats that might not get as much attention while there is such an abundance of kittens available. Please make a difference in their lives!
Korrie
Korrie came to Feral Fixers in July of 2024. She is social, friendly and confident 2-year-old brown tabby that enjoys meeting new people and will be happy to greet your guests. Once she forms a bond with her person, she is quite the cuddler. She enjoys snuggling up and sleeping with her foster mom. She loves being petted, including chin and cheek rubs, forehead scratches and long strokes down her back. She purrs, makes biscuits, and follows your hand with her head to get more. With prominent black stripes and green eyes, Korrie's distinguishing feature is her unique tail. It folds back on itself in a "U" shape right near the end, so it looks like she is beckoning to you! Not demanding, she would be fine with someone who is away at work during the day. At times, she likes hanging out with her people and being part of the action. At other times, she is happy to entertain herself by chasing around a toy mouse or curling up in the sun for a nice nap. When you get home from work, she will be happy to greet you for some playtime and cuddling.
Korrie would be happiest as your one and only pet. She gets along with other cats but likes to be the center of attention.
Logan
Logan is one of the calmest cats at adoption events. He observes all the activity, waiting for his chance. In a home he is playful, enjoying toy mice and laser lights, chirping and chattering at birds outside as he sits in the window. You’ll notice his ear tip – he came from the outside with war wounds and as a result he did test positive for FIV but is very healthy. He has a distinctive appearance with his long upper canines that protrude even when his mouth is closed. Loves to cuddle on the couch, he may need to be your only kitty friend. He came to us in May 2024 and would love to devote himself to his new family in a forever home.
Mich
This cat has a lot of energy and loves to interact with humans and cats alike. He is a 10-month-old brown tabby and is so handsome with his amber eyes. He loves playing with his foster sister Wonda, may need to have a buddy in his new home to keep him fully entertained but has room for plenty of cuddle time with his people on the agenda. If you prefer an active, loving cat, Mich is the guy for you!
Wonda
This 10-month-old brown tabby girl has a unique look with a round face and eyes that gaze at you steadily like she sees everything. Wonda is quiet and constantly purring, enjoying cuddling with people and playing with her foster brother, Mich. This is the quiet watch cat that is just waiting to interact when the opportunity arises!
Appleton
This brown tabby is a great character. Loves bird and squirrel watching, running from window to window – he is a big boy so be sure to have a perch and windows big enough! He’s one year old and loves belly rubs but not children so much. He wants to be the only star in your home and will tell you all about it as he is vocal. Give him a chance to get comfortable and he will change your life!
Rosebud
Yes, Rosebud is a brown tabby, too! Medium hair and super soft, she might be considered a Maine Coon. Born in April of 2025, she came to us with a cloudy eye which the vet says is stable and needs no further treatment. That eye does not slow her down; she does have some vision out of it and loves dangly toys and softly “eeks” for attention when you arrive home. Other cats and humans are great for cuddling. She has been fostered in a quieter home with other cats so a quiet environment might be the best future home for Rosebud.
How Does This Work?
We get a call or an email from a caretaker or someone who has seen a colony of cats. We are at the top of the search engines for TNR, and our first question is “What is the address?” We have to know that so that we know whether the cats are in our territory and if we know of resources to help them. The map of “Where We’ve Been” is checked and we see if they are close to other caretakes in the database. This tells us if they originated in another colony and have spread out, basic information that is very helpful in trapping.
Hopefully we have a volunteer trapper who can make contact with the caretaker, arranging trapping – the more the caretaker can do in the process, the better and faster it will be = fewer kittens. We always hope to get there before there are kittens! Success can range from same day to weeks and months to get all of the cats trapped in a colony. Again, the knowledge of an area increases communication between the residents and long-range control. We are busiest from April to October, and each year would like to achieve 1,000!
The cats come to Feral Fixers in advance of a scheduled spay/neuter day. If surgery is on a Thursday (typical), we hope for cats to be on hand by Tuesday evening so that we can find out as much about the cats as possible – they may need extra care and kittens are evaluated for their tameability and age. We use DuPage County Animal Services and ADOPT Pet Shelter for surgeries. We pre-arrange the number of cats we can get done and hate to waste a slot! Transport leaves the building by 8AM to go to the clinics and return same day, late in the afternoon. Upon return we add extra newspaper and feed the cats – they are usually very hungry after fasting prior to surgery. We hold them for at least another day before returning to their colony, sometimes longer depending on any issues they may have or the weather – hate to return them when heavy rains are expected! In that short time period, some cats decide that being inside might be a great idea, resulting in the adults we have on hand for adoption.
Foster kittens arrive same morning as surgery and go back to fosters that afternoon. Our fosters do an incredible job and as a result several thousand cats are in safe and happy homes.
Kittens – need to be at least 4 – 5 weeks old and eating on their own before we can take them in – we do not have bottle baby volunteers to cope with a huge number of bottle babies, and their mother will provide them better care than we ever could. TNR is our focus, not the harvesting of kittens from the outside. If we do take them in, they are evaluated for friendliness. Some are immediately friendly; others can take a couple days before settling down. When they reach that stage, Cats In Transition volunteers care for them in a room separate from TNR, providing interaction at least twice a day, bringing them to a point where they can transition to a foster home and continue that journey to adoption.
Cats come back from surgery same day. With the ferals we check for any health issues discovered, and barring any concerns, they can be released on the second day – if surgery was Thursday, they can go back on Saturday. Weather, caretaker issues, can vary this timing. The friendly kittens are a huge relief as they go back to their fosters the same day! Some cats, once neutered, seem to realize that being friendly is a great idea and transition in just a day, which takes them on a path to fostering. Genetics and previous human contact play a major role in cats becoming tame.
We may only work with a caretaker once and we’re done. We hope they will be in touch immediately if a new, unneutered cat shows up. We have many long-term relationships with many caretakers! Contacting us as soon as cats appear is very important – even if we cannot get there immediately, knowing they are there can allow trapping to be the most efficient. It just takes one female to start everything up again!
This is just the basics of the process, usually not as simple as what is written here, but here are the basics of what happens.
How many cats? 16,545 (and counting)!
Feral Fixers was founded in September of 2007. Our totals of spay/neutering cats, by year:
Visit our website (feralfixers.org) and scroll down the page until you see the box on the left-hand side that says, “How Many Cats?” click on that box you will see our Statistics page, where you can see our month-by month progress.
Facts and Figures
We are so lucky to work with DuPage County Animal Services, and they have been kind enough to share the facts and figures for cats they have neutered for Feral Fixers from 2018 to 2025. DCAS obtained a mobile unit in 2018 and that was the beginning of their surgeries for Feral Fixers. As you can see from the charts, at least 100,000 cats were not added to the population and who knows how many in subsequent years if all of those cats had remained intact and contributed to the total? We also use the ADOPT clinic for additional surgeries so the total numbers are actually higher. Feral Fixers has neutered a total of 16,545 cats since our start in 2007. Just imagine!
This chart shows the prevention of births based on ½ of all births being female and average of 4 kittens in each litter, 3 litters per year possible, cumulative effect.
Can you imagine trying to find homes for almost 18,000 kittens that could have been born in 2025? Please do everything you can to get EVERY cat neutered!
2025-2026 Holiday Card Photo Contest!
As many of you know, each year Feral Fixers sends out a Holiday Greeting card to everyone on our 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.
And so, we would like to recognize the winning picture of “Jerry” for this year's holiday card submitted by his caretaker, Julee.
We encourage you to submit your own photos of outdoor cats in winter. The picture should definitely say "winter" and "outdoor cat" and “snow”. We can accept pictures in nearly any format as long as the resolution is acceptable.
Thank you, Julee - this picture of “Jerry” truly says "winter" and "outdoor cat"!
Please send your submissions to
The deadline for entering is April 15, 2026.
Upcoming Adoption Event
January 24, 2026 - Feral Fixers Adoption Event! - Feral Fixers will be hosting an adoption event at the 330 Eisenhower Lane N, Lombard, IL location from 1pm to 4pm. If you would like to get pre-approved for same-day adoption, please email us (by noon Friday, January 23rd) at
All of our cats/kittens are in Foster homes, are spayed/neutered, current on their vaccinations, microchipped, dewormed and FeLV/FIV tested. You can see all our adoptable cats by clicking on the Want to Adopt? link at the top of our website.
El Famous Burrito Fundraiser
Thursday, February 12th – come to the El Famous Burrito Fundraiser for Feral Fixers! Mention Feral Fixers or show this flyer when you order and Feral Fixers will receive 20% of the proceeds!
Valid only at the Lombard location – 256 W Roosevelt Rd, Lombard, IL. New items on the menu, come enjoy!
Now through April 15, 2026 - Holiday Card Photo Contest! It's snowing! Every year we host a Holiday Card contest and submissions for 2026-2027 could be entered as soon as there is snow! Deadline is April 15, 2026. Must show snow and an eartipped cat. Highest definition is a big factor, too. Submit your entries to 