Concern For Feral Cat Population Rises in Garden Valley

Some tips from Lou Ann at FixPets


The Feral Cat Spay/Neuter Program is available to people in Garden Valley also.

My recommendation is to feed these animals so they
don't starve. Maybe take up a collection in town for them at the
restaurants/bars. No reason you can't feed them scraps from the
restaurants also rather than throwing it away, or cook up non-sellable
meat from the grocery. Provide shelter for them if needed.

Let me know if
you need ideas on feral cat shelters. BTW, you can make some feral houses out of old ice chests (cut a hole in the end and add blankets) or you can modify a storage tub and line it with sheets of styrofoam, add blankets or straw and cut a hole in the end. It helps keep the cats out of the wind and retain their body heat inside. I have a couple of plugged in pet heaters for mine. They also make some you can microwave to heat up and that lasts for a while. The internet may have other creative ideas. http://www.alleycat.org/ is a great organization with ideas for feral cats.

The cost per cat to fix them is $10
for feral cats in traps. We have traps for checkout

with a $50 refundable
deposit for each trap--we hold your check
to IHS until traps are returned.

Oh, and try to establish feeding areas and a feeding routine.
That way you'll get more bang for your buck (more cats per trip)
which will save
you time, effort, and money.

You'll want to capture as many cats as
possible the first time out
so they don't get trap wary.

For the tame cats,

you might considering bringing them to IHS
to be adopted or place an
ad with pictures on Craigslist.

Plea for help if you need it. You can also
put an ad for food for these cats
and let people know you are working to
have them fixed.

Always fix before adopting cats out.

Let me know if you
need help placing any once they are fixed.

Place an ad asking farms if
they'd like free fixed feral cats. They must agree
to provide food, water
and shelter though.

For online scheduling: http://www.supersaas.com/schedule/IHSFeralCats/Feral_Spay_Neuter_Clinic
login:
password: feral

Once you have fixed your cats, we'll remove your name from the system. You
will need to register again the next time you need to bring in ferals.

From: Fixpets

SPOT also spays/neuters tame cats for $25 for low income residents, so we are a one stop service. NAC is awesome too though. I'm not sure what their prices are currently. We are offering a big event on February 22 & 23, if a bunch of folks want to sign up for that and low income won't be required. ** (See earlier post on feral cats, hurry, may be too late to register!)
~~
If low income folks want to sign up their tame cats, they can contact IHS SPOT Clinic directly at 342-3599 to make an appointment. Might be a good idea to have a group of people do this. Perhaps the cats can carpool and people can take turns. ~~
For the high income people, we also accept donations to the SPOT program to help support the low income family pets and feral cats. The program actually loses money doing this and relies on donations.