I recently had 2 kitten rescues, now I come home and 3 more were delivered to my gate. Worried that more will come. I'll try to manage (I mean, God doesnt give us what we cant handle, right? Right?) but resources arent unlimited. And I dont think theyve thought about spaying their pets (or the strays that they happen to feed.)
Ever had this problem? What did you do?
At least here in Brazil, it´s VERY common, specially during springtime, when female cats sometimes run away to play outside and return pregnant. All my 5 cats are spring rescues.
As they are kitten, specially if they´re under 2-3 months, they aren´t lost, they were delivered by someone who don´t want them. If they are a bit bigger, they may have ran away from somewhere, so you have to check in the neighborhood.
The way you should behave depends, really, on your neighborhood and how they like/dislike cats. In the first house I lived when I got married, people didn´t like cats, although the street had a colony of strays. As they were often mistreated by mean pre-teens, the aldults were feral, and we could never do something for them. But we rescued 4 of them that became our pets. In the neigborhood I´m now, almost everybody seems to love cats, have them inside and neutered, and we often take care of each other´s cats and dogs. When last year we had a litter of around 4-5 monts old abandoned here, the neighbors "absorved" them: I got one more cat, two neighbors got one each. One of them is stray till now, but in two or three houses people give them food; I worry about him mostly because of the traffic, and I tried to rescue him once, but he got desperate because of my cats, and ran away cimbing the cat protection and forcing the roof.
How many cats, apart of the kitties, do you have? can´t you try donating one of them? How many males and females do you have?
Thank you to both of you for opening your hearts and homes to these precious ones. My three cats are all rescues. 1 adopted from a shelter after having been rescued from a hoarders house with 39 other cats. 1 was a random stray that I took in and the youngest was a 4 week old kitten abandoned in my neighbor's car. She said she didn't want him and was planning on leaving him by the side of the road but decided to give him to me instead.
Our 2 cats also came from the street. One was an abandoned kitten that our dog rescued from the garden. They still enjoy the street life, although they also enjoy the cush life of a full food bowl and numerous couches to sleep on. Ha ha! I enjoy running into them out on the street, I like to imagine their double life. One of the cats is quite vocal, so you can stop on the street and have a "conversation" with her.
@Lorien Thanks, it helps to know I'm not alone in this predicament. 6 cats officially (meaning living in my house, though I have outsiders I feed too). But the recent gifts are 5 kittens. It would have been okay if like before one of adults took it in but lately her behavior has been erratic. And much as I would like to, I cant take every kitten that comes.
My original favorite boy has packed up and left too. But thankfully he's with another cat lover, though not regularly.
@Molly That's great. though I hate to be considered a hoarder. >_<
@Marisa Yup, I dont like the idea of cats being cooped up either. Indoor is so-so for me, caged is even worse. Much as I like my cat breeder neighbor, Im just biting my tongue from telling her caging is wrong.
I know the feeling. Although we´d love to just include them in the family, every house has a limit. Are there any public spraying programme at your city? If so, and you can use it, you can bring either the male kitties or the female, depending on whats the ratio between males/females. When I got the litter of 4, one of the females got her first heat when she was about to reach 4 months old, and we needed to keep the male separated till we could spray him 5 days later...
I hope you can find a quick solution for this problem, so its not stressful neither for you, nor for the cats and kitties
@Lorien The ones with me I can have spayed. What worries me is where the kittens come from. The abandoners might just keep dumping them on me without thinking of stemming the tide from the source.
I've put the word out to a person in the neighborhood. Hopefully the talk spreads (just about everything else does).
Thanks!
Have you thought of running a web page and get a pay pal account to collect donations? My sister in law had a dog rescue group and she had a facebook page and a website and had people donating money or supplies for the dogs. She had to stop due to getting sick but its wortha shot on doing that so the word gets out
@Laura That's a great idea! Thanks!
Your welcome!
What a predicament to be in! I take you don 't have a cat shelter you could take them to? The difficulty being, if no one else can take them what can you do? As you say funds are limited. Put a sign on your gate. It is awful of people to abandon their responsibilities literally at your door. Wishing you all the best, whatever you decide.
Was just at the vet, and we were both commiserating of the same predicament. I have more funds now, just worried at the time that people would give me more.
The sign at the gate is a good idea. Worst of all the kittens that get dumped were taken from their mothers, less than a month old. Thanks!