Brewery gives 4 feral cats a forever home and they help out in a major way

Empirical Brewery of Chicago gave 4 feral cats a purrmanent home. The feral cats returned the favor by keeping the rodents at bay.

Meet the rodent specialist team!

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Empirical Brewery

"We were paying a pest control company and it wasn't working," Jim Ruffatto, operations manager of Empirical Brewery told Love Meow.

"Rodents were still getting into our grain bags, and we were still seeing them in the building."

When they found out an alternative solution from the Tree House Humane Society (in Chicago), they figured it was worth a shot.

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Empirical Brewery

The rescue group offers a program called Cats at Work that "removes sterilized and vaccinated feral cats from life-threatening situations and relocates them to new territories where their presence will help control the rodent population."

"We got the cats in December of 2014, they lived in a very large group of cages that were connected together for about three weeks to acclimate to the brewery. Then we let them out and they currently live in a multi-level cat house that we built for them."

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Empirical Brewery

The cats roam wherever they please... and as soon as they were brought in, the rodents checked out!

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Empirical Brewery

"They just lay around like your typical house cat would. Rodents are scared off by their scent, so it's not like they're out chasing mice and rats all day."

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Empirical Brewery

"We held a poll on social media to name the cats and the winners were the Ghostbusters - three original Ghostbusters (Venkman, Ray, Egon) and Gozer, because our Gozer is kind of a destructor."

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Empirical Brewery

The staff at the brewery feed with fresh food and water each day, fresh litter, and offer company if and when the cats want it.

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Empirical Brewery

"They have actually started to come around in the last month or so."

"Venkman and Ray are now very comfortable and they let us pet them sometimes, usually when hungry. Our Brewer, Nevin, has actually picked Ray up a few times."

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Empirical Brewery