Why I Foster Kittens

In April 2019, I met a person who changed my life. She started as a patient and soon became a friend. During her time in therapy, we talked about her family, pets and hobbies and she introduced me to the world of fostering. 

Like me, she has an only child. Although she felt she had more love to give she and her spouse didn’t want to add human babies to the family. So they started fostering at risk kittens. She brought in a litter of Harry Potter kittens, in a cool little kitty messenger bag. One snuggle with Hermoine and I was hooked.

I literally put in my foster application, ordered $300 worth of kitten supplies and read the Kitten Lady’s entire website in one afternoon. The next morning, I had an email from the shelter, letting me know they had a litter of 8 week old kittens who needed a week or two placement. But when I got to the shelter, 2 mush babies (4 weeks or so) had just been dropped off and so I ended up taking those two sweeties home.

The beginning was a bumpy ride. Despite my attempts at preparation, the learning curve for fostering is steep. These kittens are usually neonates, suddenly separated from their mama, who is the best at caring for them. They are fragile, challenging and can have a variety of issues and illnesses in their weeks leading up to being adoptable. 

Our first set of fosters taught us a whole bunch of things. They had trouble feeding, were delayed with litter training, had constipation issues, GI parasites, an upper respiratory infection and also had bad reactions to their early vaccines. But these kittens brought so much joy to our household, particularly, my daughter and I, that we could not stop.

Friends and family now look at me as the crazy cat lady sometimes, which is pretty funny, since I’m really a dog person. But I consider myself a totally sane cat lady.  Kittens can get pregnant at 4 months old. They can have up to 12 babies per litter. They are only pregnant for ~60 days. They can have multiple litters per year. Therefore, one “unaltered” cat and her resultant babies can create more than 400,000 kittens in their lifetime if they are not fixed. 

These babies, if separated from mom, are at severe risk from tons of stuff like hypothermia or heat stroke, flea/ tick infestation, malnutrition, and illness. They require round the clock care that many shelters cannot provide and are the most at risk to be euthanized if there is not a foster system in place for them. 

What Should You Know?

1. Educate yourself on the issues. Hannah Shaw at the kittenlady.org is an amazing resource for all things related to the Kitten Epidemic. 
2. If you stumble across kittens, wait for the mom to return if they babies are not in immediate danger. She is likely out getting food and won’t return if you are nearby.
3. If mom doesn’t return in a few hours, then bring the kittens to your local shelter so they can get the proper care. Make sure to keep them warm if they are tiny. (The Kitten Lady also has instructions on how to care for orphan kitties if you decide to take this task up on your own.)
4. If mom does return, let her care for her babies, but do reach out to Animal Control. There are a variety of programs called Trap Neuter Release that help end this cycle of reproduction and help rehome kittens so they don’t end up as community cats. This helps to relieve the finder of the financial burden of spaying or neutering as well as vaccinating kittens and also helps them get adopted by appropriate families.

How can you help?

1. Adopt don’t shop…there are tons of animals in your local shelter waiting for forever homes. If you want a purebred animal, consider finding a rescue for that breed or choose a responsible breeder over a “puppy mill.” (Side note: I own a purebred animal. We wanted to adopt an animal from a shelter, but Peach was in such bad shape in the pet store that we paid a small fortune to adopt and rescue her.) 
2. Consider fostering an animal, whether it is a kitten, puppy, dog or cat. Shelters are very stressful for animals. They are more at risk for illness in the shelter and can’t be their true selves which means longer time until adoption. Research which type and age group of animal would fit your lifestyle.  
3. If you can’t adopt or foster, consider donating to your local shelter or a foster family you know. Fosters are purely volunteers and although they get help with the medical care of the animals, many foster families use their own money to buy food and supplies for the animals they take in. 

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Thanks for reading! This may explain why I always have new kittens in posts and photos 🙂