Need advice with managing a feral colony

Anne

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Well, here's the thing. My two boys will be attending a new school next year. This school is a lot about parents being involved, community stuff etc. I'm a member of I guess what you would call the PTA, and we had our first meeting tonight.

Now, this is a very new school, with lots of issues and of course, a limited budget. First thing I noticed when I got there the first time, and again tonight, was feral mother cat and two kittens (2-3 month old, I think). I won't be surprised to find out there are more ferals on the ground.

I brought the topic up for discussion and offered to lead a community effort to get the cats TNR'ed + medical care, then building them a feeding station + some shelter and making sure they are well taken care of. All as a school project, involving at least one POC with the staff, and hopefully some dedicated school kids.

Now, although I have been around feral cat people a lot, I can't say I ever took it upon me to manage a colony. I've done my share of trapping, and neutering and all that, but that was for specific cats that showed up in our backyard. One of them decided to stay and adopt us, and is given full care. The others moved on after they healed.

I will need to find a local sponsor, hopefully some cat food company, or even a local pet shop. I guess I need to survey the colony first, see how many cats we're talking about and then budget this.

So, any tips and ideas on where to begin are welcome.
 

sarahp

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I think the most important thing is to build a rapport with a low cost clinic. The shelter I volunteer is awesome for advice, are flexible with me bringing cats in (I can do it late or last minute), and they'll do things like run stool samples free of charge.

I'm no expert, but at DH's work we have 2 of these style feeders - http://www.petsmart.com/product/inde...ductId=2751244 (but not quite so fancy!), which gets topped up every couple of days with dry food, and the other with water. There is a big water container and an airtight bin next to it which holds the dry food big water container to save lugging food and water around constantly. I don't worry about wet food unless I know there's a pregnant/nursing mom around.
 

ldg

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Anne, I wish I had advice, but Gary and I have always done it on our own - we've never had to co-ordinate with other people - and when we started the shelter, we had someone who was already rescuing who wanted to manage the whole thing. The most we had to do was create/co-ordinate presentations on TNR at local high schools to rustle up volunteers for the shelter.

Have you spent any time on the Alley Cat Allies site? They've got great "how to" resources! Same with Best Friends. I'm sure you already have the web addresses, but just in case,

http://www.alleycat.org
http://www.bestfriends.org/nomorehom...sourcelibrary/

Good luck!

Laurie
 

cc12

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Finding low cost vet care is very important and I think one of the first things to do. I still feed around 5 or 6 who come and go. My traps have not been a huge success yet because of how busy it is in my yard. One thing to think about is putting the food and water in a low traffic area so they will come.
Pet stores here give big sample bags and I am not ashamed to ask for a bag full. Usually when I tell them what I am doing they are happy to help.
 
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Anne

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Thanks for all the advice! I went over there on Friday, but the school yard was locked up and I couldn't see a single cat. I'll get in touch with the lady that feeds the cats to see if she can help me with a head count.

The former chairman of our PTA is actually a vet, and I suspect he can help with low cost care. I still want to find a sponsor for the colony for two reasons -
1. I don't think it's fair to place the cost on this vet, just because he's a parent.
2. I think it would be good PR for the sponsor, as I plan on running press releases on the entire operation (to raise awareness, if nothing else).
 
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