Stray feeders shift to dry food, other cooking modes

Kolkata: The ongoing crisis of LPG cylinders has thrown up challenges for stray feeders across the city, prompting them to explore alternative ways of preparing meals for their furry friends. In a bid to bypass dependence on LPG, some of them have moved to wood fire or induction. Others have temporarily shifted to dry or packaged food, like flattened rice, biscuits and bread.

Hazra resident Arushi Bhattacharya, an employee of a private firm, has shifted to dry food, like kibble, over the last few days. "It is difficult for me to manage alternative ways with limited resources. I feed about 22 strays daily and I cannot let them starve just because LPG is unavailable now. I have stocked up on dry food for a week. After that, I am not sure how to continue if the gas scarcity lingers," she said.


Alipore resident T J Mookerjea and his neighbours feed strays. "We are going through a tough situation now but we have decided to continue with our stray feeding initiative. We are trying to find solutions and have decided on feeding strays flattened rice that can be mixed with chicken broth and pieces. We may also be forced to mix dog food with this mixture," he said.

Behala resident Sunetra Bhattacharya said, "I feed about 15 dogs daily in my neighbourhood and my monthly expense for this is around Rs 18,000. The LPG crisis threatens to raise the expenses as I may have to use induction cooktops or feed them packaged food."

Radhika Bose, who daily feeds about 400 strays in New Alipore, Taratala, Kalighat and Hazra, has switched to induction cooktops. "We are going around begging for LPG as it is difficult to use induction to prepare meals for so many strays. It seems that the crisis might stay for some time, so we are planning to buy an electric cooker," she said.

Some feeders are reluctant to change the menu for strays since they think strays may not be interested in dry food. Nagerbazar resident Manisha Chowdhury has teamed up with other animal lovers to feed around 500 strays daily at different locations, including Burrabazar, Tea Board area, Posta and the R G Kar Hospital area. She said,

"It's tough to arrange LPG, so we are requesting people to lend us a cylinder at the nominal price. We need 10 LPG cylinders per month. Right now, we are using our last cylinder. It will last for two more days. All these strays have a habit of eating rice and chicken, so, shifting them to dry food is tough. I have no option but to arrange for cylinders or shift to cooking on coal and wood ovens."