How this site came to be...

How strange, a site dedicated to Feline Birth Control...

History AND Purpose Of This Site

In 2008, Dr. John Caltabiano, DVM, of Connecticut brought to market a product known as “Feralstat”.

Feralstat was a powder that was to be mixed in with wet/canned cat food and fed once a week to various sized colonies of feral cats to prevent estrus (heat) in female cats.

Feralstat was safe to be given to pregnant and nursing females, as well as male cats and kittens.

Feralstat was actually a very miniscule amount of megestrol acetate mixed with lactose powder for palatability along with a food dye. Megestrol acetate was the active ingredient that prevented estrus in felines. A Google search of megestrol acetate will turn up more information on the drug for those of you that wish to learn more about the actual drug itself.

 

How this site evolved because of a few dedicated individuals’ love for feral cats...

Shown above is a picture of original Feralstat packets. Each packet contained a measured amount of medicine based on the number of cats in the colony it was prescribed for.

To feral cat colony caretakers, Feralstat was a blessing! Feralstat allowed feral cat colony caretakers to get an edge on the population of their feral colonies until proper TNR could be performed. Since many feral cat colony caretakers were paying for spay/neuter out of their own pockets, Feralstat was a low cost product in comparison to the ever-increasing litters of kittens as it allowed caretakers to get ahead of the reproduction rate of the colonies.

One would think that Feralstat would have been heralded as a miracle for the pet and veterinary industry. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case. No sooner than Feralstat was announced, the naysayers and the mass media machines began to decry Feralstat. Many lies have been told about Feralstat.

The most vocal opponent of Feralstat was the “Alliance For Contraception In Cats & Dogs” (ACC&D).

I myself am highly critical of the ACC&D. I believe we can have an inexpensive dog food laced with birth control on supermarket shelves if the powers that be really want it. I don’t think the ACC&D really wants a low-cost birth control for pets available to the consumer.

There is a LOT of money involved in the future invention (or suppression) of marketable contraceptives for cats and dogs. Lots of money!

Unfortunately, the ACC&D & their spin doctors immediately began downplaying the use of Feralstat shortly after Dr. Caltabiano released it. The ACC&D released many statements citing negative side effects of Feralstat, safety issues, etc. What the ACC&D did not state was that most all of these negative side effects from megestrol acetate are from doses MUCH LARGER than the doses contained in Feralstat!

In my opinion, the ACC&D never really studied Feralstat. They only bad-mouthed it from the beginning. A Google search of the word “Feralstat” will still turn up the same ol’ (YAWN) unproven statements about the safety issues and side effects of the use of Feralstat to control estrus in felines.

The ACC&D continually IGNORES the thousands of satisfied customers of Feralstat that report ZERO side  effects of the use of Feralstat if used properly. They also refuse to acknowledge the safe prevention of millions of unwanted births of kittens that the proper use of Feralstat has prevented.

To this day, the ACC&D still has NOT come up with an affordable and safe feline contraceptive, yet they continue to bad-mouth the tried and proven safe use of Feralstat. Usage that has been tried and tested by hundreds of feral cat colony caretakers who used Feralstat on a weekly basis with ZERO adverse side effects.

I myself wonder if since the main ingredient of Feralstat (megestrol acetate) is NOT a “big money maker”, is this the reason they turn a deaf ear to its use? Without a lot of money in the equation then there’s also not a lot of money to be made by a veterinarian that prescribes it nor for the drug manufacturers that produce it.

How many medical doctors still prescribe cheap penicillin for you when you are sick? Most don’t. They always prescribe what I call “DOT COM” drugs—expensive drugs still under patent and on which millions of dollars in advertising is spent daily. Many of these drugs have their own “DOT COM” website.

In short, nobody’s pockets get stuffed with money when one obtains a prescription for megestrol acetate from a veterinarian as an affordable feline birth control. Nobody gets millions of $$ when we prevent millions of births each year with the use of megestrol acetate.

Megestrol acetate is NOT a “DOT COM” drug. It is not advertised ad nauseum on afternoon TV in between showings of Oprah, The Doctors, & Dr. Phil. Advertising which costs millions of dollars to manufacturers of such drugs as Levitra, Viagra, Plavix, Lipitor etc.

Megestrol acetate can be administered by the consumer and does not require a veterinarian to administer it. A veterinarian prescription is required to purchase it. However, many of today’s veterinarians are ignorant of the use of megestrol acetate to control estrus in felines.

Many veterinarians have never heard of Feralstat and they then turn to Google, once again coming up with the tired (YAWN!) and unproven statements of the ACC&D.

Even many feral cat colony caretakers themselves are unaware of the use of megestrol acetate to control estrus in feline colonies. With the birth rate of the colony far outnumbering the amount of cats the caretaker can afford to spay and neuter, it becomes a hopeless battle unless some form of birth control is used.

In my opinion, the information about the use of megestrol acetate to control estrus and prevent unwanted births of kittens has been suppressed long enough.

That is the purpose of this site...to educate and inform the feral cat caretakers out there that there is indeed an affordable and safe feline contraceptive available by prescription and it is called megestrol acetate. (MA)

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The End Of Feralstat & The Beginning of A Grass Roots Effort For Affordable Birth Control Alternatives

Note: There is a separate page on this website describing what happened to Feralstat.

In late July or early August 2011, Feralstat disappeared from the market. Almost instantly, thousands of Feralstat customers were left without a means of controlling the births in their feral colonies.

Calls to the Feralstat office went unanswered, rumors began flying, veterinarians ERRONEOUSLY reported the FDA pulled it off the market. They didn’t. Many caretakers were told that Feralstat would return “soon”.

Feral colony caretakers were in a panic. With their supplies of on-hand Feralstat dwindling, their feral colonies once again began swelling with births of unwanted kittens.

Former satisfied customers of Feralstat turned to the Internet for help. Once again, information on feline contraceptives was vague and Google searches only turned up the same tired and unproven statements of the ACC&D.

By Summer 2011, an old Topix discussion thread that was started in 2008 in regards to the use of megestrol acetate was resurrected by feral colony caretakers desperately looking for Feralstat or an alternative to it. Actually, that Topix discussion thread is how this website came to be. The Topix thread contained several hundred responses over the course of almost two years. Many dosages of megestrol acetate were discussed throughout the thread. Ideas and thoughts were hashed out and discussed in a professional and helpful manner.

The information, though useful, was outgrowing the Topix site. Internet trolls and spammers were kept at bay as an intelligent and informative discussion slowly evolved simply because of the plight of a few dedicated feral colony caretakers in search of feline birth control.

In late 2012, a few of those dedicated people that diligently posted and contributed to that thread decided a website was needed to put all of the dosage information in one easy to read place. A condensed “Reader’s Digest” version so to speak.

Many individuals on that discussion thread stuck with the Topix discussion over the years and came up with their own tried and proven methods of obtaining and using an affordable and SAFE birth control for cats with the use of megestrol acetate in place of Feralstat.

One dedicated poster to the Topix thread, Barbara Lewis of Florida even compiled her own research concerning the minute side effects of megestrol acetate if used in low doses such as the ones we administer for feline birth control.

Many veterinarians referred to the Topix site once their patients asked for a prescription for megestrol acetate and referenced her research. Some veterinarians that were initially against prescribing MA for feral caretakers changed their minds once they looked over the diligent research of Barbara as well as this website. Many veterinarians are amazed at the miniscule doses of MA we use to effectively prevent estrus in felines.

You can view Barbara’s research on her main site HERE or you can go directly to her research HERE. I myself and my friend Jim Phelps and others on the original Topix thread commend her for her efforts to bring the information on MA side effects to light.

In a nutshell, there are almost ZERO adverse side effects of the use of megestrol acetate for estrus prevention if it is used as outlined in LOW doses on this website.

I am not saying that MA does not have side effects...all drugs have side effects. I can truthfully say that I myself have not experienced any of the adverse side effects that the ACC&D and others have harped on in their stance against MA/Feralstat. I have used Ferastat/MA for almost 11 years now. If you follow the dosing guidelines as outlined on this website, you should have no problems with MA.

The website you are now viewing grew out of a necessity to educate feral cat colony caretakers about affordable alternatives to Feralstat and feline birth control. Many others like myself found themselves in a jam in August of 2011 when we could no longer obtain Feralstat and our colonies once again began swelling with births.

In the original Topix thread back in 2011, hundreds of other feral colony caretakers were also looking for answers when Feralstat disappeared. Many of them turned to a pay site such as justanswer.com in which one pays to ask a licensed “expert” or veterinarian questions. The “expert” then takes the money and answers the question. Several people asked the “experts” on justanswer.com questions about feline birth control. If you followed the Topix thread, you saw that many times these experts gave false and erroneous information in regards to Feralstat.

Please see one such “expert’s” answer HERE. The expert’s answer is totally false and erroneous. The FDA did NOT pull Feralstat off the market. It is evident that these “experts” just Google the word “feralstat” when they are presented with a question about it, and they always simply quote the same tired statements such as those from ACC&D or Alley Cat Allies.

Once the “expert” gives the customer the answer, they then take the money and the customer, a desperate feral colony caretaker, is then left thinking that there is not an affordable and safe replacement for Feralstat out there. This is yet another reason why this website was developed.

This is just one instance of many in which feral cat colony caretakers were misled and left in a dilemma when Feralstat disappeared from the market.

This website will thoroughly explain how a feral cat colony caretaker can mix and “clone” their own affordable version of a generic Feralstat by using prescription megestrol acetate for prevention of estrus in their feral colonies.

The use of feline birth control is NOT meant as an alternative to proper spay & neuter of pets.

All responsible pet owners should have their pets spayed and neutered!

The use of feline contraceptives is only meant to complement traditional spay & neuter until the colony caretaker can properly TNR the entire colony.

Please read this entire website before trying to mix your own feline birth control! The #1 factor is the safety of the feral cats!

 

I know there will be fallout from putting this website up. Issues regarding our pets and animals are sensitive ones. Naysayers and “experts” will condemn it. Pitchforks and torches will be raised. To all of those that will be quick to condemn this site, I humbly ask them to come up with a better solution to the ever growing problem of feral cat overpopulation.

Most of these people have never seen the horrors and atrocities found in feral colonies due to overpopulation. They’ve never seen sick, starving, maimed kittens in a feral colony because of overpopulation.  I myself have.

They also have never seen the healthy and safe results of weekly use of megestrol acetate in miniscule doses thus preventing the births of thousands of unwanted kittens. I have.

If you are not part of the solution, then you are part of the problem. Myself and the others here that have helped make this website possible all want to be part of the solution. If we all work together, maybe we can come out of the Dark Ages and really step into the 21st century and find an amicable solution to overpopulation of cats and dogs. What side of the fence are you on?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Feline Birth Control:

 Miracle Or Myth?

Never doubt that a small group of concerned citizens can change the world, indeed it’s the only thing that ever has.

–Margaret Mead