We always enjoy receiving photos of the cats we sterilize, but this one in particular caught out eye.  This cat loves life on the farm and blends in so well with the lambs that you may think they came from the same litter.  Many of our cats live in rural areas with Manchester leading the way with over 450 sterilizations.
 

The Life of a Managed Feral Cat
-- Can Be Pretty Nice
If you're like many people, you've never seen a feral cat -- most are timid and keep a low profile.  So it may surprise you that our Feral Colony Assistance Program works with over 500 feral-cat caregivers right here in greater Washtenaw County -- and they care for over 3,000 cats -- providing each with daily food, water and dry shelter.  It may also surprise you to learn of the quality care they receive.  The stereotype of the emaciated cat with stringy fur is not resident in these colonies.  We've started collecting data, and here's some of what we've learned from the first hundred caregivers we queried:

Caregiver Experience. Half of our caregivers have been feeding feral cats for over 4 years and many for more than 10.  All have been caring for feral cats for at least 3 months and some up to 20-30 years.

Shelter. All cats in our program must have some type of dry shelter -- cats develop good winter coats for warmth, but need help staying dry -- and we found that all our caregivers provide shelter.  Many use a combination of sheds, garages and barns while others use decks and porches.  Many also add a winterized dog house or straw-filled cat shelter for extra winter comfort.

Feeding Routines. Half of our caregivers feed two meals a day -- usually a combination of wet and dry cat food.  The other half feed once a day -- or ongoing -- and provide dry food exclusively.  Many add food scraps, milk and cat treats to their feral cat diets.
 

The special trait of these caregivers is that none of them sought out a feral colony to manage -- but they responded instinctively and humanely to their new "neighbors" when they appeared on their property.  The relationship often gets off to a spotty start -- with both cat and caregiver wary -- but warms up when the feeding routine settles in.  Before anyone realizes it, the colony begins increasing with the birth of kittens.  Then the caregivers contact their veterinarians who refer them to us for spay/neuter assistance.  We encourage them to bring the baby kittens indoors to socialize and adopt out person-to-person, while using our spay/neuter vouchers to sterilize the adults.

This achieves two goals: the socialized kittens are permanently removed from the outdoors, and the adult cats -- who don't have that option -- continue to live in their managed outdoor home.  Now sterilized, they no longer reproduce, so their overall health and life quality improves dramatically.  And, with their hormones checked, the distasteful cat behaviors -- yowling, spraying, fighting -- go away.  Everyone wins -- especially the community that is now replacing healthy-cat euthanasia with managed feral cat care -- the most effective -- and most humane -- way to reduce the overall cat population.

Dear Friends,
We're saying goodbye to our "cat farm" in Lodi Township -- but not to our commitment to cats.  When we established our programs, we tried to be a full-service organization with a variety of services.  Some, like the Older Cat Programs, used the farm, while others, like the Spay/Neuter Programs, did not.  Over time we realized that, as nice as our farm-based programs were, they were not moving us closer to our goal -- to eliminate the community's use of euthanasia for feline population control.  For the programs that did, like our Spay/Neuter Assistance Programs and Veterinary Scholarship Program, the farm was an unnecessary luxury.  Recognizing this, we began phasing out the farm programs and are at a point where it is no longer needed.  The number of cats in our Older Cat Program is low enough now to move the remaining home with me for life care.  And, with the farm behind us, we can now focus all our resources on spay/neuter assistance.  With this more-focused effort, we hope some day, all cat shelters will be unnecessary.
Kitty Zimmer

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