PLEASE HELP THE HICKSVILLE CATS & STOP THE CYCLE OF BREEDING!

A friend of mine in Hicksville has been feeding feral cats in his yard, and I've helped in the past with Trap/Neuter/Release. In fact, I ended up keeping one of the cats I trapped and socializing her.

Recently my friend noticed kittens, and I enlisted the help of a fellow trapper to rescue the babies and fix the momcat and tomcat. On Friday July 5, traps were set and before long we had trapped two tomcats, one younger lynx-point and one older grey tabby, and two kittens but no Momcat.

Conversations with neighbors revealed that there were more cats and kittens in the neighborhood, and so more traps were set on Saturday July 6, resulting in 3 momcats and 2 litters of kittens being trapped.

Sunday morning July 7, I brought the two tomcats to a clinic to be neutered and discovered that the older, more docile one has severe dental disease. The clinic gave him a shot of antibiotics but couldn't do dental work on him, so I held him in a crate until I could get him into the care of another rescuer, who took him to a vet on Friday, July 12.

The grey tabby needed a lot of dental work (full mouth extraction) costing several hundred dollars. He is friendly, and will be adopted once he recovers... with no teeth, he deserves a life indoors.

The neutering of the two males was a couple of hundred dollars, and that was at a low cost clinic. So with just these two male cats, the vet bills were already close to $1000. And the kittens all need to be treated for fleas, worms and eye infections, vaccinated, and ultimately fixed when they are old enough (11 more spay/neuter surgeries, even at low-cost clinics, adds up pretty quickly).

But wait... there's more. After trapping 3 females, 2 males and 8 kittens, we learned that there is a "feeder breeder" in the neighborhood, who feeds the cats and makes no effort to get them spayed or neutered... resulting in the population explosion we are now dealing with.

At least 7 or 8 more males were spotted, along with another mom and 4 kittens. Trapping efforts are ongoing; meanwhile the cost of veterinary care for the 13 cats trapped so far is enormous, and still growing... we need help!

Our goal is to trap, neuter, and return all the feral cats, and find homes for the friendly ones. Many of these cats are beautiful color-points. The kittens will all be socialized and adopted out when they are old enough, after they are spayed/neutered. The older cats will be assessed for adoptability; those that are feral will be released back to their colony where they will be fed and provided shelter.

Please consider donating towards the care of the Hicksville cats. Every little bit helps!