In any cattery setting, it is important to have thresholds to manage the intake numbers of cats in order to maximise capacity and minimse stress and overcrowding.
In the past our threshold was 12 cats of which 3 would be critical care cases.
With our new foster space, new cat suites and expansion into critical intensive care for sick and injured stray cats, our threshold for critical care cases is now raised to 5. We reserve one of the cat suites for rescue kittens needing rehoming, which when young can reach to 4 kittens in one kindle. The free roaming kindle of foster kitties remains at 4. Hence our total ideal threshold is at 13 inclusive of 5 ICU cases. In critical periods the threshold may need to be stretched to 17.
While the threshold total number remains largely the same, the proportion of ICU cases has increased, made possible by all you cat angels!
(as of 13 June 13 our current cat count is at 7, ICU capacity at 40%, 4 are free-roaming. Reserving only 1 cat suite for rehoming kittens, maintaining free-roaming cats at ideal number of 4, means that at present moment we abide strictly by our triage method of accepting rescue kittens for rehoming.)
If a kitten is not in dire need, or you have not exhausted other foster options, we will not stretch the current capacity. It might sound a tad cold in being this strict, but maintaining threshold numbers aids a lot in the quality of care for the current cats in our custody. Oftentimes in fact, when you rise up to foster on your own, even without prior experience, the cat receives better care because it is one human to one cat, whereas in a shelter scenario like ours, it is not the case. This differs when it is about a sick or injured stray cat that needs medication/injections throughout the day which a normal human's schedule may not allow, hence our priority of setting aside 5 cat suites for such cases.
