Happy New Year everyone!

Since it's the New Year, that can only mean one thing - Frosty Claws, our oldest and 'mostest favorite' fundraiser is just around the corner.

In this issue's Letter From the President, Feral Fixers president Tammy McAuley talks about this, the weather (and how that affects feral breeding), a workshop on TNR and kittens that she recently attended, etc.

You can also learn about another P.A.W.S. organization that we love, how Feral Fixers is helping DuPage County Animal Care & Control reduce the number of cats they have to euthanize for space, how you can help by being a foster, where we're at "with the numbers", the 2013 Holiday Card Photo Contest (and the winner of the 2012 contest) and much, much more...

Sincerely,

Our biggest event of the year is coming up on January 20th! Frosty Claws is an opportunity for everyone to get together, socialize, share information and have a great time with like-minded people! We aren't limited to being a feral cat supporting community, but everyone at this event is supporting cats in general and see that TNR plays an enormous part in that.

We have some fundraisers going on, raffles, silent auction, our boutique (shirts, hats & cat stuff) and Recycled2New will be there. We will have lots of food & beverages. If you have questions about trapping or care of cats, our people will be on hand to help.

Silent auction donations have been pouring in - we have art, crafts, gift baskets and not one but three cat trees!

Weather

We are all wondering how the weather will affect the unneutered ferals this Spring. The warmer temperatures, lack of snow...their hormones are supposed to be governed by the angle of the sun, but the temperatures seem to play a part too.

We've gotten several calls from caretakers saying that their ferals are pregnant, which absolutely should not be happening yet. Used to be that we could say with great certainty that the cats had just put on a lot of winter weight. We don't want kittens born this early in the year with the possibility that Winter is still going to hit us really hard.

This is one of the reasons we work so hard to neuter as many cats as possible. Keep an eye on any new arrivals to your colony and help us get them neutered right away!

Taming Feral Kittens and Cats for Adoption Workshop

I recently attended a workshop presented by the NYC Feral Cat Initiative and Urban Cat League, hosted by The Anti-Cruelty Society and Tree House Humane Society at Anti-Cruelty in Chicago.

One of the most interesting parts of the workshop was the information on how age and hormones affect 'tameability'. You can get the same information at http://www.nycferalcat.org/info-kittenssoc.htm, you will find links to the videos we have on our home page and links to other resources - most of the information at the workshop came from Urban Cat League.

What impacts the possibility of taming? Age - beyond 5 - 8 weeks it is increasingly difficult to tame. Sex - Fight or Flight instinct develops quickly in females. Nature and Nurture - Genetics and Mom's opinion of humans (how recently in their bloodline did their ancestors interact positively with humans? does Mom tense up and run whenever humans appear). These are all reasons that we might tell a caretaker that it is "too late" for the kittens in their colony to be tame. The reasons that the females may never tame. The reasons that whole litters may never tame.

I had never seen the reasons for and against taming spelt out so clearly.
FOR: Reduce size of colony, improving community relations and making care more affordable for caretaker. There are available tamers/fosters/adopters for the cats and kittens.
AGAINST: Current location is safe, cats are well cared for. Tamers/fosters/adopters are non-existant or extremely limited. Big picture - every feral adopted takes a home, does that equal more euthanasia at animal control?

We get calls "I heard you guys take cats, can you come get this one?" "No, I've never touched it, but I'm sure it's friendly." "It's a kitten, it can't be more than 8 months old."

There are also some excellent tips on taming kittens and cats by letting the cats decide to approach you by limiting their access to food - it truly is the best and only way to change a kitten's behavior without using some level of force. It can take time and if you have to move more quickly in the taming process, there are other methods, but this way will result in happy, confident kittens.

Trapping Kittens

Caretakers (and Feral Fixers volunteers) are often on the fence as to whether to trap the mom first or the kittens first, should we trap the first kittens that show up? so many questions!

http://www.socialferals.blogspot.com/2011/03/always-trap-feral-kittens-dont-chase.html

Urban Cat League's stance is to trap the mom first. She will disappear with the remaining kittens, otherwise. And we have seen that happen time after time. What is really novel is their advice to not take the first kittens that show up. Wait until all of the kittens are in the trap OR for the last ones to show up are in the trap. The last ones to show up are the most shy, hardest to trap, guaranteed to produce the next litters when they are old enough. The blog details using the "bottle on a string" idea to get multiple kittens in the same trap, in order to get the most cautious. I will be passing this on everywhere there are kittens from now on. It can take more patience but pay off big time in the long run, I think.

More To Feral Fixers Than TNR

I've said before that we are a shelter for the outside cats. This has been demonstrated this past year by the almost 400 kittens and friendlies that were placed in shelters or adopted from fosters. This has been shown by the number of calls we received about ferals who had upper respiratory or clearly had worms and we helped with their care. People have a dying feral and have nowhere to turn and call us. We helped with eye removals, wound care, leg amputations. What TNR organization does that as an automatic response to a need? We thank all of our donors for their help in making DuPage County a more humane, caring place to live that has more and more respect for the cats, not just the ferals, that live among us. 

Feral Fixers has a very active Facebook page.  You can go there and get the very latest information about what we are doing - sometimes even before it shows up on the blog!

Don't forget to "Like" us and the good karma will surely flow your way...

To find our Facebook page, click on the Facebook logo.

Thank you!

We are very happy to see these results and it's another validation of the importance of the work that Feral Fixers is doing.  Here's hoping for a big, fat ZERO in this category in 2013!

The City of West Chicago recently put out a Press Release recognizing the value of Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) and recommending that local residents contact Feral Fixers for assistance in taking care of their Feral Colonies.

From the Press Release:

Thank you West Chicago!

Feral Fixers was founded in September of 2007. In that abbreviated first year, Feral Fixers had 86 cats spayed / neutered. In 2008, Feral Fixers had 525 cats spayed / neutered and in 2009, Feral Fixers had 868 cats spayed / neutered. In 2010, Feral Fixers had 1,002 cats spayed / neutered and in 2011, Feral Fixers had 1,024 cats spayed/neutered.  Finally, in 2012, Feral Fixers has had 1,225 cats spayed/neutered

This brings us to a total of 4,730 cats. Clicking on the abacus will send you to the Feral Fixers 'Statistics' page where you can see our progress, month-by-month, since we've started work.

Fans of Feral Fixers know that we work with a high-volume spay/neuter clinic in Chicago known as PAWS (Pets Are Worth Saving) and that we absolutely love them.

But there is another P.A.W.S. organization that we love too - this is the People Assisting Wildlife Society, a student organization at Wheaton North High School. They have previously donated to Feral Fixers and now they have done it again! In October, they held a Pet Food Drive and donated the proceeds to Feral Fixers!

Lisa Schmalz, the sponsor of P.A.W.S. writes:

We are very grateful to P.A.W.S for their donation of canned and dry cat food, cat litter and paper towels!

From December 1st through February 28th, 2013, Feral Fixers will NOT be bringing in cats to PAWS for TNR.  We're doing this for three reasons; 1) We have a TON of paperwork we need to catch up on, 2) trapping cats in winter / cold-weather can be very dangerous to the cat and 3) we need a break!

But this doesn't mean that we're not going to be busy with Feral Fixers activities. People sometimes don't realize how much behind-the-scenes documentation and paperwork is necessary to make a 501c3 organization such as Feral Fixers a successful organization.  To list just a few activities that we'll be concentrating on beginning in December, we'll be updating our name & address database so that we can send out our Holiday cards, we'll be updating all of our donor/deposit information so that we can send out our Donation tax letters, we'll be updating our database of feral colonies so that we can more effectively plan our efforts in 2013 and beyond, we'll be planning our fifth annual Frosty Claws fundraiser, etc., etc., etc.

So, contact us in late February or early March with any ferals in your area that need to be fixed!

2013 Holiday Card Photo Contest!

As most 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 is 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 for this past year's holiday card submitted by Ms. Julie Dannhauser.  Thank you Julie - this picture truly says "winter" and "outdoor cat"!

Please send your submissions to [email protected]. The deadline for entering is April 15th, 2013.

Come on everyone - let's get creative!

Want to purchase something purr-fect for your cat-lover friends and help out Feral Fixers at the same time?  Just visit our CafePress store and Buy Something! In addition to the Cookie Jar shown to the right, we have T-shirts, sweatshirts, aprons, hoodies, mouse pads, gym bags, messenger bags, coffee mugs, tote-bags, pet food bowls, Pajamas etc. A portion of each sale goes to help us in our TNR efforts.

Visit our website at www.feralfixers.org.  There you can donate to us (via PayPal or credit card), visit our store, read the latest news, and learn more about feral cats.