Thanks to those who donated items in the past week, including wet cat food, bedding, and the perfect-sized covered litter pan!
Ten little kittens have come into the shelter in the last five days. One needs to be bottle-fed and four have just started eating on their own so they need special kitten food. The others are old enough to eat adult cat food – quite a lot, in fact, as they are in the middle of a big growth spurt.
These kittens join 18 others currently in the shelter or foster homes. Add to that at least four or five more due to be delivered any day by a very pregnant momma cat and, lo and behold, we have a shopping list for this week:
Purina Pro-Plan kitten food, wet and dry, is the best thing we can feed the kittens who are just starting to eat on their own.
Friskies pate-style wet cat food for adults is what our older kittens and pregnant and nursing moms eat.
Purina kitten chow and adult cat dry food is the recommended brand for our shelter cats, primarily because of the limited amount of food coloring and dyes in it.
While we’re asking for food to fuel our growing kitties, some of our adult cats have the opposite problem. They need to lose a few pounds, so we also need weight control (a/k/a low-cal) indoor dry cat food for the tubsters.
What about the bottle-fed kittens, you ask? They need a specialized food powder called KMR kitten milk replacer. That can be hard to find, so we’re more than happy to take CASH donations so we can buy it from our veterinary suppliers. In fact, it may be easier for some to donate money rather than take the time to go shopping for these supplies and, if so, that’s fine with us, too! We'll quickly put the money to good use.
But wait, there’s more! Still on our wish list are the following:
Dry Puppy Food – the Purina brand is great because of the limited amount of dyes and food colorings.
Small Bite Dry Adult Dog Food – again, Purina brand (Little Bites) is good, as are any brands which use little or no food colorings or dyes.
We still appreciate donations of:
Clay Litter -- the non-clumping, NOT the scoopable kind (the stuff that makes the scoopable kind stick together clumps on kittens' paws and they ingest it -- not good).
Covered Litter Boxes -- thanks to those who donated litter pans; what we're talking about here are enclosed boxes, with an opening for the cat to go in, but the litter can't get out. And the smaller the better! While our cat cages are quite spacious as far as shelters go, it's not the same as a home environment, so the big ol' Booda boxes and self-cleaning set-ups are too big. Think small and space conserving.
We can also use Paper Towels and Toilet Paper (okay, that's not for the pets, but for the staff and volunteers who take care of them!).
We're looking for more Foster Homes to help us provide the best accommodation for our dogs or kittens (with or without nursing moms). If you would like to know more about IMHS's foster network, please visit our website and look under the “Ways to Support Us” tab.
The IMHS Shelter is located at 67318 US Hwy 285 in Pine Junction, in the basement walk-out of the Log Building. The shelter is closed to the public Sunday and Monday; staff and/or volunteers here Tuesday-Friday to receive your donations from 9 am until 2 pm and Saturday until 4pm. And until we get through this monsoon season, please don't leave items outside our door that could be damaged by the rain.
