Dedicated staff hand-rear kittens around the clock
12 July 2017
With the annual kitten season now well underway, Cats Protection branches and centres are struggling to care for over 1,600 new kittens nationally.
Among them are Archie and Jiminy Cricket, two tiny kittens that are both being hand-reared by staff at the National Cat Adoption Centre in Sussex.
Archie, whose mother died in a road accident, and Jiminy Cricket, whose mother rejected him, were both a few days old when they were brought into the centre. As they are too young to fend for themselves, they are currently being bottle-fed throughout the day and night by a team of dedicated staff.
Karen Thompson, Manager of the National Cat Adoption Centre, said that while staff were only too happy to care for the pair, hand-rearing them had put further strain on resources during a busy kitten season.
She said: “They may be tiny but caring for a young kitten is incredibly time and labour-intensive. Not only do they need to be fed with specialist formula throughout the day and night, they also need a lot of careful interaction and handling to ensure they learn all the social skills they’d normally learn from their mothers.”
Kitten season is a particularly busy time for branches and centres across the country, and over 3,000 kittens have already needed Cats Protection’s help this year. With kitten season well underway, staff are bracing themselves for another difficult season as unneutered cats breeding uncontrollably makes it harder to cope.
As Karen says: “All this heartache could easily be avoided is more cats were neutered. Neutering is a simple procedure and Cats Protection is able to offer many owners help towards its cost.”
If you’d like to donate to help the charity support homeless and abandoned kittens, please visit www.cats.org.uk/donate or text KITTEN1 to 70660 to donate £5. Terms and conditions apply - click here.
£5 could supply 10 days’ worth of specialist milk to hand-feed an orphaned kitten while £10 feeds a cat in care for over a month.
Pictured: Jiminy Cricket