Pets
Related: About this forumWelcome to kitten season, when animal shelters need all the help they can get
Strawberry, Blueberry, JoJo and Mazzy were about 6 weeks old when animal rescuers coaxed them out of long metal pipes in the parking lot of a storage unit company. Meatball was a single kitten living in a cold garage with a group of semi-feral adult cats.
Spaghetti, Macaroni and Rigatoni, meanwhile, were just 2 weeks old when the good folks of LIC Feral Feeders, a cat rescue in Queens, took them in and bottle-fed them until they were strong enough to survive.
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Kitten season, typically landing during warmer months, is the time of year when most cats give birth. That produces a surge of kittens, often fragile neonates. Shelters get overwhelmed, especially when it comes to the 24-hour care and feeding of extremely young kittens.
That, as a result, triggers a need for more foster homes because many of the 4,000 or so shelters in the U.S. dont have the time or resources for around-the-clock care, said Hannah Shaw, an animal welfare advocate known as the Kitten Lady with more than a million followers on Instagram.
We see about 1.5 million kittens entering shelters every year. And most of them will come into shelters during May and June, she said. Shelters need all hands on deck to help out through fostering.
https://apnews.com/article/kitten-season-foster-shelters-a7728f596e87ceeb89b38cd42d69ad3e
I'm currently fostering my fourth, and would have given her back sooner to be adopted except she's been battling a stubborn case of...lice! Hopefully her next lime -sulfur bath will fix it for good.

CurtEastPoint
(19,563 posts)All of the Metro Atlanta counties' shelters are seriously overcrowded.
One day the governments will realize that if they spend the money to get people to get their animals neutered and spayed at no cost it's a lot cheaper than building shelters and staffing them and caring for animals and then winding up euthanizing them
slightlv
(6,094 posts)I've been so lonesome, wanting a kitten... but telling myself I'm too old to have a kitten. I sleep so little, I'd have no problem keeping up with a bottle feeding schedule. Might be an answer for everyone, all around. Thank you for the reminder, Jilly!
in2herbs
(3,817 posts)their animals!
Jilly_in_VA
(12,407 posts)Kitten, puppy, older cat, dog, whatever, if you at all can.You don't have to commit to keeping them forever, but they're such a joy for awhile.