Roscoe's September Report

from CARE to Little Lotus Hearts

Hello to my Little Lotus Hearts friends!

This month I'd like to share with you a little of what it takes behind-the-scenes to keep a place like CARE in operation, along with a few really cool pictures...or maybe that's pictures of us trying to keep cool!

We sure get a lot of sun in Texas in the summer and are wondering if you know anything about alternative energy or solar power? If so, give our humans a call. They say we spend too much on electricity, about $1,500 a month.

We are so glad fall is around the corner. By the way, fall is a lovely time to visit Texas! I hope you'll stop by to see me if you're in the Dallas / Ft. Worth area.
Here's one of our interns filling a water bucket. You can see the water's running a little slow! That's how our well water is these days.

In the summer, interns change our water 3 times a day to keep it drinkable. That's 45 water buckets! Normally it takes about 30 minutes but with our wells the way they are, it now takes three hours! 

Below right is Zeus keeping cool in his pool in 100+ degrees. It's impossible to keep all the tiger pools full when it's 9 hours of work just to keep them in drinking water.

Digging a new water well would cost between $5,000-$10,000. Our humans are looking for donors and we are keeping our paws crossed.
Yum, it's turkey time! We get vitamins and medications in balls of ground turkey. Lucky cats get turkey balls more than once a day! Our caregivers use 40 one-pound tubes of ground turkey each week.

Our humans also feed us about 100 pounds of chicken a week to guide us to our lockdown areas when they need to clean our enclosures, and sometimes just to say, "I love you!"

Our main meals come from local ranchers: cattle, horses, or deer meat. Feeding us big cats costs CARE over $2,000 a month. 

Our food is kept in a giant freezer that is 10-years-old and has failed four times in the past year, which means our meat has gone bad and cost CARE $1,000-$2,000. The freezer door has a hole that leaks air too! The humans want to replace the freezer door, compressor, and cooling system and think it will cost about $5,000.

Now, here is Dr. Bill working on Kira in our vet center. We are lucky to have Dr. Bill do housecalls and give us such excellent care. He gives the humans a big break, but vet costs for the 50+ of us are still $500, $1,000 or more a month. Our meds can be as high as $1,000 a month, too, since many of us came to CARE with chronic problems.

Below, I am visiting the air conditioned vet center. Being a senior has its privileges.

Even lions like toys sometimes. Do you have some old stuffed animals you don't want? Send them to us! The seniors amongst us also like blankets or bedding, as you can see above. The vet center beds use twin sheets.

Then we have some mundane things that we go through a lot of, such as:

Bleach (35 gallons a week)
Paper towels
Cleaning supplies in general
Toilet paper (okay, not us but the people!)
Water hoses
Ground turkey
Postage stamps
Office paper
Hand soap
Dish soap

You get the picture! Running a big cat sanctuary is a lot like running an office, a hotel with restaurant attached, and a hospital combined! The only thing that costs zero is the manual labor. Our humans are all interns or volunteers who work for free. Can you believe it?
This is Jakey. He was one of the tiny cubs featured in earlier reports (here and here) to Little Lotus Hearts. Now he is 3-years-old and stunning. Jakey is named after Jake, a majestic senior who passed away several months after Jakey's litter was born.

Until next time my friends. Stay cool!
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