What is a "Cat Colony?"

Here are a few pictures of different "managed colonies" I help care for in my neighborhood. Tree House Humane Society volunteers help each other feed and shelter feral cats who have been "TNRed" (trap-neuter-return). Tree House assists us with free dry food (and wet food when they have it), shelters, and other supplies and we in turn provide Tree House with annual reports of who is in the colonies and their status (health, description, spay/neuter status, if any have been homed or left etc). Tree House volunteers were also responsible for what I like to call "trapping gangs", groups of people who come out together and trap large numbers of cats at one time. 

This is a pretty kitty who lives in an abandoned house. She pokes her head out when we arrive but won't come out to eat until we leave!!

You can see the hole here where she pokes her head out. The boxes are feral cat shelters stuffed with straw. This is in the back basement area - outside. 

Here are a bunch of kitties enjoying breakfast in an alley. There is actually a small area between two garages on the right that is covered with a tarp where we feed them in bad weather, with 2 cat shelters inside.

This is a large wooden shelter a neighbor built, that Tree House volunteers spent hours sanitizing and rehabbing last month. It is completely insulated with foam board insulation, it has a raised floor, and is stuffed to the gills with straw, which repels moisture and is snug and warm for the kitties. We cover the food in bad weather. 

Volunteers took time to talk to neighbors to make sure they were all ok with us feeding cats on their properties, and letting them know the cats were fixed. It also helps to post a note in the feeding/shelter areas to inform neighbors that the areas are being maintained by shelter volunteers. Tree House has many great examples on their website of letters for neighbors to hand out or post. We make sure to take our cat can garbage with us and keep the areas clean and neat. 

Cats With Tips

One day, you might see a cat in your neighborhood who if you look closely, has a small section of its left ear "tipped" or removed. This means that a TNR (trap neuter return) volunteer in your neighborhood has already trapped, fixed and vaccinated this cat. The cat will also almost assuredly be microchipped and tattooed on its belly to indicate to other TNR volunteers and cat lovers in-the-know that this cat does not need to be trapped. However, if this cat is sick or injured, you can trap it and take it to any vet or shelter and have it "wanded" to check the registration on the microchip, and call the shelter it's registered with for medical and hopefully financial assistance in treating the cat. The eartipping is completely painless for the cat as it is done while the cat is under anesthesia when it was being fixed. 

Cat Town 2012

My husband is a master feral shelter builder. This is the interior and exterior of what we are happily calling Cat Town 2012! You can see the blue heated water bowl. Inside the white box is a bi-level insulated condo complete with a heated cat patio. We feed them on the shelf there, to keep their little paws off the cold ground. 

Treating cats for common eye problems

Are you seeing a cat squinting like crazy and seeing some discharge? It is having a flare up of herpes. All cats are exposed to the kitty herpes virus. Some will have recurring issues, some won't. If you can get your cat or your stray/feral cat to a vet, great, but you can also do this: Put Lysine in their food.  Get the capsules so you can open them up and mix them into their wet food. The dose is 500 mg twice a day for 5 days (total 1,000 mg/day). Lysine has a slightly salty taste, and is easily disguised by mixing with canned cat food or baby food. If that seems like a huge dose for a cat, it is--but that's what it takes to work. Once the acute episode is under control, a maintenance dose of 250 mg per day can be given indefinitely. (Thanks to http://www.catsofaustralia.com for the great info). I know there is also a gel you can get: 

Working Cats at the Hermitage Museum in Russia

Here's a great video about the staff of 75 cats who have worked as rodent control technicians at the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia for over 200 years!

Working Cats Program in Ravenswood!

Check out this link to a short article and audio interview about the Working Cats Program in Chicago! Tree House Humane Society is hiring out kittehs to work as rodent control technicians at $40 a pop! It's a pilot program, and the kittehs are achieving a 90% success rate - and the program will be expanded. 

Prison Cats

Check out this article about Seattle's "Cuddly Catz Program!" Apparently "a 2006 study by Kansas State University's Dept. of Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work reported that such programs exist in at least 20 states as well as Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Italy, and the number of participating institutions is increasing every year."

This video is MSNBC's tongue-in-cheek piece on a few prison cat stories. Hilarious and interesting.