Faribault cat sanctuary cares for area strays

FARIBAULT, Minn. (KEYC) -On a hobby farm in Faribault, a team of volunteers help care for the area’s feral cats one feline at a time.

Furball Farm was founded six years ago by an army veteran and former vet-tech who took in and fostered cats from shelters.

Now that idea has grown into an expansive facility housing over 150 cats run by nearly 40 volunteers, and founders said that experience working with animals is integral in running this type of operation.

“My cat got sick and I said ‘are you a cat-nurse? And they said ‘no I’m a vet-tech. And I said ‘I want to be like you. So I actually went to be a vet-tech I was a CVT. And I think that if anybody is going to run a rescue or a sanctuary I think that’s so important. You have to have knowledge on care,” said sanctuary founder Julie Marvets.

The sanctuary takes in stray and feral cats and spays, neuters and vets them, getting them up to date with medicines and vaccines.

From there they enter the sanctuary, where they can play and sleep to their hearts content, slowly getting them used to humans.

After that they’re tagged with a colored collar, meaning then they’re ready to be adopted.

Caring for this many cats means lots of food and litter, which owners said is all donated by the community.

“350 pounds of food, of dry food a week. Canned food, we open up 250 cans of food every single day,” Marvets said. “Each litter box holds 120 pounds. We’ve got 13 of them, and we are adding to them daily. We probably add 80 pounds to each box daily.”

The sanctuary estimated that since opening six years ago, they have seen over 400 cats get adopted from their care.

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