A Reminder: Its Kitten Season

[maggie101]

“Kitten season” is here and it’s not a good thing. An estimated 20 MILLION kittens will be born this spring! Rescue groups, shelters and humane societies nationwide are overwhelmed with unwanted kittens arriving daily.

Less than 3% of the feral and stray cat population is spayed or neutered—and they are responsible for 80% of all the kittens born every year! Rescuers can scoop up stray kittens all day long but we will never get a handle on our cat overpopulation crisis until the adults are fixed. Yes, it is a crisis. Most people don't realize that every day 2,300 cats and kittens are euthanized in municipal shelters simply because of overpopulation.

If you are feeding outdoor cats, please do your part to help stop the cycle by having them spayed or neutered through a TNR (trap-neuter-return) program. TNR is safe, humane and the proven SOLUTION to cat overpopulation.

 

[mrsgreenjeens]

Great reminder. Thank you!

 

[maggie101]

Also they can give birth 3 months old and only takes 9-12 weeks to give birth

 

[1 bruce 1]

If you call around most humane societies have a very low cost clinic that will do vaccines, spaying and neutering, for an extremely discounted price. Some of them will slash that cost some more if you bring in a litter of kittens or a group of adults. So it pays to do some checking around

 

[Maria Bayote]

Thanks for this info. The streetcat I named Snow White whom I have been feeding just gave birth 10 days ago and today I could hear her yowling and wanted to sprint out the door. (I contained her inside the house for now since she gave birth). There are Toms lurking outside our apartment.

 

[maggie101]

It reminds me every year a cat rescued that had 3 big pouches in her. She survived the surgery.

 

[di and bob]

The ONLY way to get a handle on the problem of feral cats and cats with no homes, is to stop the unwanted kitten population. They deserve better then this. I wish there was more research done on oral contraceptives/sterilization, something easier anyway, like a chip placed under the skin. Until then it is almost impossible. I had one cat that had 17 kittens in one year, before I finally caught her. Cats need to be rare, so they are treasured. It breaks my heart to see all the homeless and the abused.....

 

[candie]

Makes me sad that they have to eunthize them cause of population. Not a lot of cats get lucky .

 

[will2002]

I am so thankful that this thread was started because it blends in with a situation that has been tormenting me all week long.

The week started off bad as we lost my wife's 11 year old Siamese "Toby" on Tuesday. He had been to the Vet on Thursday for his yearly checkup and , "Everything was fine and dandy", said the Vet. He gets sick Tuesday a.m. early, and dies at 2:15 p.m. that afternoon. Needless to say, a person never knows how much you miss something, or somebody, or a beloved Kitty until it's gone... TOBY.. mama and I miss you old friend! You are loved!

That was stress enough I suppose, but is not what is actually bothering me the most. Here is the deal. We live in a small rural town in Farming country with a HUGE SURPLUSS of cats, and also a SURPLUSS of cat HATERS. This little towns idea of animal control is, "Ignore them, and maybe they will go away." What ever you do they say, "don't feed the G**damned things or we will never get rid of them. This I understand, but Mama AIN'T gonna let any cat go hungry or thirsty. She told the town Mayor, "The "city" could live trap them and deliver them to the no kill shelter"...That just got her a polite smirk!

My wife has been a farmers daughter and a farmers wife for too many years, and has cared for so many animals, to let one starve. So when some butt**** dumps a load of cats and/or kittens, which happens monthly, at least, she will feed them and then try to take the ones she can catch to the No Kill Shelter in the County Seat. The problem is most are WILD as can be, and will not be easily caught.


We have been caring for strays and feral cats for more years than I care to remember, while full time farming and living on the farm, but it seems we are finally getting very tired of trying to correct other "people's" screwups! The more we correct, the more there are to correct.

Sorry for the rant folks, but this has not been one of our best weeks. The wife and I both love cats dearly, and absolutely HATE so see them be abused and suffer. I'm afraid have finally come to the place in my life if a "human" hates cats, I hate the human! Sorry.

 

[GalaxyGirl]

I live in the country. People dump kittens off around my property every year. Last year was really bad. No shelter was taking kittens within 100 miles of me. I wish people would stop and fix their pets instead of dumping off kittens and thinking they'll live free in the country. No they get hit by trucks or starve to death.

 

[FflurCadwgawn]

The shelters are already full here. I third the low cost vet clinics through the humane societies.

I live in a farm and we can almost always count on cats being dumped off/showing up either at the end of November or the beginning of May. We call them the semester drop offs because there are two colleges in the area (one is a community college and one is a four year university). We also get them dumped off at the end of the resort season (I live near Chautauqua Institution and people will adopt animals.....for the summer. It drives us locals batty and there is a huge feral cat population in Chautauqua during the off season (September to June). Sigh.

I do my bit. These are the cats I've had since I was 10 (I'm now 32):

Kittie Katie
Tinker
Rudy
Birdie
Patches
Heidi
Jax
Libby
Gizzie
Miss Kitty Reily

Out of ALL of those cats, Tinker and Jax were the only ones we adopted from the humane society. Heidi was a feral barn kitten we adopted from our vet (it's onlytaken us 10 years to get her to beg for lap time......).

Birdie and Gizzie went to the humane society for adoption.

And now we have the barn cats Winky, Aunt Gertrude, and Bullseye at my brother's farm a mile away, with possibly a relative of Winky's we named Dobby.

Yeah..........moral of the story is that I've had a dozen cats and all but two of them were strays. I am pretty sure Rudy and Kitty Riley were semester drop offs. :/

 

[Mamanyt1953]

This would be so simple, if EVERY CITY AND COUNTY would do it. Pass a law that says, ALL CATS AND DOGS, other than purebreds kept for breeding purposes, must be neutered before six months of age. Low cost spaying and neutering is available to qualifying owners. Purebreds kept for breeding purposes must be registered as such with the city/county, and the owner's property available for ongoing checks by animal control (or whoever would be appropriate in the individual cases) to ensure proper housing, handling and vet care.

 

[di and bob]

I totally agree!!!!

 

[FflurCadwgawn]

There's an island....I think in Spain?????.......where they started doing that and there have been no kittens born on the island in a decade.

+1: No kittens.

Tl;dr: Neuter the pets. Neuter everything *responsibly* to not create a bottleneck population where everyone is 100% sterile.......

 

[lutece]

This would be so simple, if EVERY CITY AND COUNTY would do it. Pass a law that says, ALL CATS AND DOGS, other than purebreds kept for breeding purposes, must be neutered before six months of age. Low cost spaying and neutering is available to qualifying owners. Purebreds kept for breeding purposes must be registered as such with the city/county, and the owner's property available for ongoing checks by animal control (or whoever would be appropriate in the individual cases) to ensure proper housing, handling and vet care.

Actually, mandatory spay/neuter laws can backfire, and can result in more animals being surrendered to shelters or simply abandoned (because people can't afford to spay/neuter their animals), and fewer animals being licensed (because people can't pay higher license fees or pay to have pets spayed/neutered). These laws are also difficult to enforce and have a disproportionate effect on low-income owners (as these are the owners most likely to have pets that are not spayed or neutered).

Most owned cats are already spayed or neutered. The main reason that people do not spay or neuter their cats is cost. The majority of cats that are not spayed or neutered are either feral cats (most feral cats are not spayed or neutered), or are owned by people who can't afford to get them spayed or neutered. TNR programs and very low-cost (or free) spay/neuter programs are the most effective ways to lower the number of unplanned litters and homeless cats.

Here is a position statement by the ASPCA about mandatory spay/neuter laws:
Position Statement on Mandatory Spay/Neuter Laws

 

[Mamanyt1953]

Actually, mandatory spay/neuter laws can backfire, and can result in more animals being surrendered to shelters or simply abandoned (because people can't afford to spay/neuter their animals), and fewer animals being licensed (because people can't pay higher license fees or pay to have pets spayed/neutered). These laws are also difficult to enforce and have a disproportionate effect on low-income owners (as these are the owners most likely to have pets that are not spayed or neutered).

This is precisely why I added the caveat that low cost/no cost spay/neuter programs should be available to qualifying owners. I really think that it would be just as cost-effective as trying to control feral and dumped animals.