The plight of unwanted kittens, and better ways to cope

I am mostly involved with wildlife rescue – usually sea birds, or small wild animals like hedgehogs – but increasingly recently I have (accidentally) become involved with kittens. 

It started off with a member of my group becoming aware of a tiny kitten being found and I was asked to check to see if they were chipped (they weren’t).

The foundling was shared on social media to make sure they weren’t an escapee but it became obvious very quickly that the kitten was one of many born to an unneutered female and male who had been abandoned and were also unchipped. 

So with a lot of help from others we set about trapping the kittens and adults with the aim of getting them checked over, neutered and rehomed.  

This story seems to have a happy ending but the reality is that the kittens should not have been born and the adults should have been chipped and therefore been returned to their ‘owners’.

It has been the law since June that all cats must be microchipped. However, we are seeing an explosion of abandoned, unneutered and unchipped cats and kittens.  Rescues are bursting at the seams. 

Some people think that cats should have a litter before they are neutered – this is wrong and very cruel.

Unneutered cats wander, get into fights (with toms fighting over a female, females get absolutely exhausted and injured fighting off toms), and then end up having babies they are usually ill-equipped to take care of. 

The recommendations now are that cats should be neutered at the age of six months, as this is the age they become sexually active.

Telling shelters your cat has had an ‘oops litter’ or an ‘accidental litter’ or ‘you didn’t know they could become pregnant so young’ means you shouldn’t have a cat in the first place. 

Unneutered cats can be responsible for thousands upon thousands of cats in their lifetime.

One cat can produce up to 16 kittens per year. Each of those within four months can go on to produce the same amount again and the numbers can very quickly be unsustainable.

Not only is it sad to see so many emaciated, poorly kittens coming in but as these kittens grow older they can have a devastating impact on local birdlife too. 

I asked Brian our resident mathematician to do some sums using complicated equations and he discovered that in just five years one unneutered female can be responsible for 110,000 kittens!

I thought this must be wrong but did some research and found that that is a conservative estimate. 

Cats and kittens are not toys. They should only be in homes where they will be microchipped, vaccinated, wormed, de-flea’d, neutered, fed correctly and kept safe.

We know though that many cats (and animals) are in good homes where their humans fall on hard times through losing a job or hours.

There is no shame in asking a food bank or pet shelter or charity to support their animals.

They would far prefer supporting you with an animal in your own home than have to find another space for an abandoned animal when rescues are already at breaking point.

So if you know anyone who is struggling (or you are yourself) please get in touch, we would be happy to help you with your much loved animal.