For my birthday this year, help me help these stray kitties and address the cat overpopulation problem in my area!

I live on the outskirts of town (Manteca, CA) and tend to have animals show up here frequently (most likely dumped). In early April, a solid black longhaired kitty started showing up in the yard. I checked the lost and found and posted on NextDoor but nobody claimed her. She then had 5 kittens in my garage! After having them, she took them and hid them for several weeks but would come back to eat any food I left for her and to hunt. She killed a lot of gophers in my front yard and would leave the heads on my porch for me She even got a rat! It took about a month to eventually earn her trust to pet her and poor thing was SKIN and BONES underneath all that fur.

Once her kittens were about 8 weeks or so, she brought them all back to my garage. I continued to feed them and put out a litter box as well which the kittens have all learned to use but they were so cautious, they wouldn’t let me get very close. Now that they’re fully weaned and old enough to go to new homes, I used my trap to catch each one and gave them their shots and dewormer. They’ve now been indoors for a couple weeks as I try to tame them, and in that time, they’ve calmed down a lot! With a little time and patience, they’ll probably warm up even more!

A younger kitten (~4 weeks old?) also showed up at work a few weeks ago! A coworker saw a dead adult cat in the road that morning so it likely lost its mama So I also have one more little kitten (white and brown tabby) who will be needing a permanent home as well! This one still needs milk so I bottle-fed it kitten formula but it’ll now eat regular food mixed in with the formula.

In the meantime, I have also been trying to trap the two adult tom cats who visit from time to time. One (a brown tabby) is clearly the father of the kittens. So far I haven’t been able to trap these males but I intend to take them to be fixed once I catch them too.

To better the chances of all these kitties finding homes, they all need to be spayed and neutered. I’ve already footed the bill for their first shots and dewormer, the mama’s spay and the neuter of one kitten, as well as all their food and litter (over $500 so far). But it’s already so much out of pocket, I can’t afford to do any more. Can you make a donation to help with my expenses of caring for and spaying/neutering these stray kittens?