Craig Street Cats

It’s been a crazy month.  So far we’ve had 24 kittens come through, taken 4 cats in for TNR, rescued another 4, and had 1 cat take up residence in a wall in the back porch.  We have also added a feeding station on Valour Road.  Quite a month — and it’s only half over

The cat in the wall did, eventually, come out.  It was coming out to eat at night, and finally succumbed to the yummy salmon in the trap.  The poor fella was mighty scared after his ordeal, so I couldn’t transfer him to a kennel to wait for the next round of TNR.  He was released, and I hope he’ll wander back into the trap when it’s set in July.

The kittens are doing very well.  Another 8 have gone up to Pet Traders for adoption, leaving 7 here.  It’s very nice to be working with only one kitten pen.  For the last couple of weeks there have been 3 pens FULL of babies, and it was taking 6 hours per day just to feed and clean up after them.  We won’t be taking in any more kittens until the first week of July, but there are quite a few waiting to come in.

Next week (June 22 to 28) we’ll be at St. Vital Centre, in the community booth by Appelt’s.  We’ll be taking some of the adoptable cats there, for a few hours per day, and hope to find lots of adoptive or foster families for our amazing cats.  Of course, we’ll have lots of kitten cards, catnip toys and cat beds for sale, and we’ll be accepting donations, as well.  This is a major fundraising opportunity for us, and we’re hoping to do well.

It’s been quite awhile since I posted any numbers, so I thought that I should probably do that

To date, Craig Street Cats has dealt with 32 kittens and 17 adult cats. We have 3 feeding stations feeding somewhere between 20 and 40 cats (and the ocassional raccoon). Currently, we have 1 adult female available for adoption, and 1 kitten being socialized. The original 4 kittens rescued in 2007 have become “shelter cats”.

This is an amazing start to a project that keeps growing. The original plan was to deal with just the cats on Craig Street, but that has morphed into a much larger project. Eventually, Craig Street Cats hopes to work throughout Wolseley, to manage our huge feral cat population. This is why we have registered as a non-profit organization, and have received permission from the Consumer’s Bureau to solicit funds.

Our application for non-profit status required us to list the purpose of the organization. Craig Street Cats registered purpose is: feral cat colony management, kitten rescue, community outreach and education.

Of course, as the project grows, so does the need for money, food and supplies. The wonderful donations that came in throughout October are almost depleted. We are down to our last case of canned cat food, last bag of clumpling cat litter, and dry cat food is at the “we really need to get more” stage.

Our current wish list, in order of priority, looks like this:

• dollars (for vets, kitten formula, supplies, winter shelters, emergencies, community outreach and education)
• canned cat food
• clumping cat litter
• dry cat food
• large totes with secure lids for storage
• large enclosures (4′ x 4′ or larger), with tops (to use as kitten playpens, mom and kitten dens, etc.)
• heat lamps (to keep kittens warm)
• towels, blankets, rags
• large, covered litter boxes
• medium to large totes with lids to make into feeding stations (softer plastic, so it’s easier to cut and sand the edges)
• cat trees / scratching posts / cat condos
• Canadian Tire money
• non-clumping litter

Of course, priorities change over time, and the order of things on this list will be very different in the spring, when we start getting more kittens.