Peggy Atkerson

Got Rats? We Have Cats! Peggy Atkerson

As rescuers we want to save every animal life, but nobody wants to risk injury often associated with helping feral cats. Don't blame the ferals; they're fighting for their lives. They think rescuers want to eat them. As a consequence of their well-deserved reputation for ferocity, the feral cat euthanasia rate at shelters is almost 100 percent. But what if you could safely relocate these natural rodent-control machines to barns and other operations where their poison-free pest control skills are respected? You can! Got Rats? We Have Cats! Starting a Barn Cats Program offers step-by-step instructions on creating a barn cats program and relocating community cats to new homes where they are welcomed and valued. Peggy Atkerson, founder of Barn Cats, Inc., a feral cat rescue in north Texas, has relocated over 8,000 feral cats to barn homes. Peggy shares all the secrets she's discovered and procedures she has refined over the past 17 years. These procedures have kept both her volunteers and her feral charges safe. Got Rats? We Have Cats! will teach you: * How to safely handle feral cats * Feral cat behavior * How to find and screen barns and other potential homes * Which cats can safely be relocated and which are likely to become prey * Common health issues in feral cats * Protecting barn cats from predators * Sample forms, flyers, procedures and lists for successful relocations * Trapping feral cats The information in Got Rats? We Have Cats! can help animal shelters drop the euthanasia rate among these high-risk cats from 100 percent to almost zero.