SCBI Summer Newsletter 2021
What's in this issue?
1. Letter from the President
2. Amazon Smile
3. Not All Heroes Wear Capes
4. Volunteer Spotlight: Heather Heilman
5. Kitten Season Guide
6. Rescue: It Takes a Village
Letter from the President
It’s Raining Kittens!
Kittens are wiggly and cute, and inspire the “AWWW” response or the other question “Mom, Dad? Can we get one?” Cue response: “Oh, ok.”
In the world of cat and kitten rescue, we still say “AWWWW” when we see a kitten but mostly, we worry. We worry if the mom cat will reject her babies. We worry if our bottle feeding babies get enough nourishment to thrive. We worry if a weak kitten will make it through the night and if we can pay the large vet bill for sick kitties. This is the stark reality of kitten season. It’s not pretty.
As the weather gets warmer, unaltered females go into heat, mating with multiple males. Sixty days later, they are ready to give birth. A litter can be 4-8 kittens and a kitten as young as 4 months can get pregnant. See the graphic to see how this plays out.
Thankfully, our intrepid volunteers guide us through this stressful time through their dedication to their mission. It is you, dear supporters, who also help us give the care these kittens need, and I appreciate your generosity, because every little bit helps and we are so grateful.
At Stray Cat Blues, we continue to expand our volunteer network and our reach. We are implementing Google Workspace and other technology to facilitate and improve our mission of saving cats and kittens in need of a home. Thank you for your continued compassionate philanthropy.
Look for us on Amazon Smile. A percentage of your Amazon purchases will be donated to Stray Cat Blues.
All of us at Stray Cat Blues wish you and yours a very happy spring!
Sincerely,
Stacy Borans
President, Stray Cat Blues, Inc.
Not All Heroes Wear Capes
Here’s a little known rescue fact: Trappers are the biggest heroes of the cat rescue world. Of all the vital roles people play in cat rescue, from staffing adoption centers, to running websites, to fostering animals, trappers have the greatest impact of any on reducing the cat overpopulation problem. Without trappers, there is no end. TNR (trap, neuter, return) is the only solution.
Trappers don’t get a lot of glory. They are working with populations of cats that are seen more as pests than pets. They work with a lot of really great, caring, community-minded people, but they also have to do a great deal of educating. It’s a delicate balance for not a lot of reward.
But without them, we would be lost. Because with every snap of a trapper’s trap, the cat population is reduced. Snap. No kitten dies from malnourishment. Snap. No life is needlessly lost due to parasites. Snap. No animal gets distemper. Snap. No roaming tom gets hit by a car. Snap. Snap. Snap. Every time that trap snaps shut, it’s a victory because it’s saving more lives in one single action than many fosters can save in an entire kitten season. Think about that. By getting one female cat spayed, you’re preventing 12 kittens (on average) per year from being born and entering a frequently deadly system. Getting a male neutered is countless more.
So while fosters get a lot of the credit and the glory (and don’t get us wrong, we LOOOOVE our fosters), trappers are the unsung heroes of cat rescue. What trappers do might not look all that glorious on the ‘Gram, but they’re really cat rescue’s front line, the offensive team. Everyone else is just back here playing defense.
Not all heroes wear capes. Sometimes, they carry traps.
If you would like to get involved in helping us combat the cat overpopulation problem by volunteering your time as a trapper, please click on the Volunteer button below and sign up to be a trapper or transporter for our trappers!
Volunteer Spotlight:
Heather Heilman
Heather Heilman is a busy nurse anesthetist, who, as a child, loved all animals. Whenever she saw one that was injured, she would rescue them and nurse them back to health. As a Stray Cat Blues, Inc. (“SCBI”) volunteer, Heather continues to provide assistance to all the cats she can through trapping and fostering.
Six years ago, Heather moved from the city suburbs to a small farm in East Greenville. Upon her arrival, she discovered a number of cats in her barn, which she immediately began to feed. Many of them gave birth to litter after litter; and once she gave away all the kittens to her friends, Heather called SCBI for help. Heather’s fostering experience began. Soon after, she discovered that cats in her area were being euthanized as a result of overpopulation and ignorance of an alternative resolution. That’s when Heather learned about trap-neuter-return (“TNR”).
Heather has been trapping cats for more than four years for SBCI. She regularly scans SCBI broadcasts for TNR assistance and traps those that are needed in her local area and neighboring communities. She quickly learned that educating and getting the cooperation of the people feeding stray cats was the key to successful TNR. Over the years, Heather has learned that people really do want to help; they simply have to know where to ask for it!
It is now the height of kitten season, and Heather has already trapped five litters of kittens. This is just the tip of the iceberg, and she is dreading the number of kittens that she will need to trap in the coming weeks. She dreads too those she will not be able to reach in time.
Heather, and trappers like her, hope for more TNR volunteers who can help stem the tide of the overpopulation problem and increase community awareness. Her message to colony caretakers is this: Please, if you feed outside cats, contact Stray Cat Blues to get them spayed and neutered. It’s the only way to stop the cycle.
Kitten Season Guide
I Found a Kitten, What Should I Do????
HALP! I found a kitten, what do I do??? This time of year, we hear this question a lot! And the answer is: it depends. But first, thanks for caring to do anything!! Now, does the kitten look plump, healthy, not covered in bugs and with a nice, round belly? Excellent! This kitten has a mama! She’s probably looking at you right now, even. Put the kitten back, and mama will return. You could even put a bowl of canned food and another of water out for her (nursing babies takes a lot of calories!) Keep feeding her a few days and she’ll probably hang around. This will make it easier for you to trap her and have her spayed when the kittens are of weaning age. Contact your local rescue or shelter and let them know you have a mama and babies you’re feeding and hopefully they can help guide you from there. And if you REALLY want to make the best impact, consider continuing to feed and maybe even make a nice little shelter for mama even after her spay when she is returned to the site
Wait, This Kitten Doesn’t Look So Good
Well, first it helps to examine the kitten to find out what is wrong.. An unhealthy kitten is one that has an angular shaped head (characteristic of dehydration), is small, no round belly, looks weak/frail, is covered in bugs of any type (or eggs), or has other signs of illness such as extremely crusty (or crusted shut eyes), difficulty or labored breathing, frequent sneezing, etc. If any of these things match what you found, seek help from a local veterinarian, rescue, or shelter right away.
What can you do while you wait? Bring the kitten inside, and get him/her bathed with a gentle dish detergent to get all the bugs off, then warm them in a dry towel. Note that small kittens (under 4 weeks of age) cannot regulate their own body temperature, so you need to keep them warm using blankets or a heating pad with a blanket or towel on top. DO make it so the kitten has the ability to crawl away if he/she gets overheated. DO NOT feed the kitten when he/she is cold and DO NOT feed the kitten cow's milk. For very small kittens, you can get KMR (kitten milk replacement) at a local pet store and try to bottle feed. For a kitten that's a little bigger (4 weeks and older), you can try feeding wet food (kitten wet food is preferred but any old wet food will do in a pinch). Once you have the kitten warm and fed, hopefully you'll be able to connect with a local vet/rescue/shelter to get you the rest of the way there!
Rescue: It Takes a Village
When we heard our longtime partner, Animal Care and Control Team of Philadelphia (“ACCT”) was struggling because their veterinary staff was exposed to COVID-19, we knew right away we had to help! Here at Stray Cat Blues, it’s always been our philosophy that animal rescue takes a village, so we call out to ours. The response was overwhelming.
We are proud to say that in an effort to ease ACCT’s already enormous challenges, our fosters have now taken in multiple nursing moms and their babies, many orphaned neonates, and even some slightly smol but precious weaned kittens, including the Pasta Pals, one of which is depicted here!
With kitten season now in full swing and every rescue facing added challenges due to the continued pandemic, we know it will take every member of our village to keep us going. Fortunately, we have a great one! If you want to join in on helping us with our lifesaving mission, please go to www.straycatblues.org and fill out an application to foster, volunteer, donate, or adopt!
STAY CONNECTED
To reach out to us directly, please fill out the contact form on our contact page directly. You can also message us on our Stray Cat Blues, Inc. Facebook page. Thank you for being a part of this collaborative group and supporting each other.