Hi Melody,
I think you'll find those ASV Guidelines helpful. For my shelter, it took years to meet the guidelines (and then the ASV released new ones!) but having goalposts can help get everyone on the same page and even attract funding to help you make progress.
The all-in all-out method is the ideal in terms of disease control. Doing periodic deep cleans with cats in the rooms can help, but the cats act as fomites, so if you had pathogens in that room, they're still there.
Fifteen cats is a lot in terms of disease control and welfare, especially when you have cats moving through relatively quickly (as opposed to a more stable population, like at a sanctuary). It's more pathogens and more stress, which just create a disease risk spiral. And the stress also impacts cats' behavior, which can extend LOS even further. The cats are exposed to a lot more pathogens simply because of the number of cats. It may make sense to start looking at other options for your free-roam rooms longer term.
My shelter went through a major Capacity for Care shift about a decade ago that involved reducing our maximum capacity and increasing housing space for each cat. We moved to double-compartment kennels and used our rooms for no more than three or four cats. We divided a couple of larger rooms into two to make that work. The effect was far more than we had anticipated. Quantitatively, our average length-of-stay and long-term-resident numbers plummeted and our adoption numbers increased. Qualitatively, immediately the lower stress was palpable, the cats' personalities were much more visible, and staff and volunteers had time to focus on the cats who needed extra support because there weren't so many cats overall. And our donors loved and supported us providing this higher standard of care. There was a big hurdle making the first major shift, but after we did it, the results were apparent, and we were able to transition the rest of the shelter over the next couple of years, as we were able to fund housing improvements. Like the ASV guidelines, it's all progress over time.
Please excuse my Capacity for Care tirade if it's old news for you. It was such a game changer for us that I became quite the evangelist. If you'd like to talk more about it, though, I'd love to jump on a call. Or you could check out the recording of a webinar I did with Maddie's Fund and UC Davis for the Million Cat Challenge on the subject here.
Karen
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Karen Green, CAWA
Ask Karen Green
http://askkarengreen.com------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: 08-17-2026 12:51 PM
From: Melody Higginbotham
Subject: Sanitizing Free Roaming Adoptable Cat Rooms
Hi Karen,
Our largest room ideally has a max capacity of 15, although during our high-capacity times it could be almost double that - with potentially up to half of them in towers & remaining free roaming. Sometimes there are cats that have lingered 20 plus days.
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Melody Higginbotham
Shelter Operations Manager
Lost Our Home Pet Rescue
AZ
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Original Message:
Sent: 08-14-2026 10:44 PM
From: Karen Green (she/her)
Subject: Sanitizing Free Roaming Adoptable Cat Rooms
Hi Melody,
I'd be happy to try to help. I just left a large cat-only shelter last year after 12 years, and housing was a high priority for us.
How long do you have cats living in these rooms and how many cats are in each room?
Karen
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Karen Green, CAWA
Ask Karen Green
http://askkarengreen.com
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