kitten overpopulation question

Ok I hope I dont come across as ignorant here, I genuinely dont know the answer and hope someone can nicely tell me it. I just wanted to know from the UK rescuers if the kitten overpopulation problem is a big problem here in the UK?

Why I ask this is because of my experiences 3 years ago, when I was looking for a kitten. I had previously taken in an older cat from a rescue shelter and wanted a kitten at that time to 'fit in' with the older cat (and of course experience the joys of kitten ownership).

I rang numerous shelters in my area and they had no kittens. When I contacted people advertising domestic moggies privately, all the kittens had gone. All that was available were pure breed cats or 'semi pure breed cats' (e.g. people trying to make money from half persians and siamese) for over £100. I eventually found kitten Tinkerbelle after 2 months of looking. A domestic tortie for £50. I admit, I did not look outside my county for travelling purposes.

In the rescue shelters which I visited, it seemed the BIG problem they faced was rehoming older cats, not rehoming kittens. To quote someone I dealt with at a rescue place 'the kittens go like hotcakes'.

Even when I put my kittens last year in a cattery when I went on a weekend break, the cattery owner said to me that he could have 'sold the kittens 5 times over'..people dropping off their cats at the cattery saw my kittens (then about 4 months old) and were willing to pay good cash for them, until they realised the kittens were boarding themselves and not for sale.

So what is the situation in the UK? I admit I havent talked to my local cat welfare organisations about this. TCS is always my first port of call lol. And its something I need to be clued up about especially if Im looking at fostering soon.

Is it a case of the kittens go quick..many of which to irresponsible owners..and then end up when they are older in rescue shelters? Whats going on?

Or is it a case of 'wrong place wrong time'? e.g. if I was in contact with you Uk rescuers at the time, 3 years ago, you would have been able to to point me in the direction of so many kittens needing homes? Or it just wasnt kitten season at that time? (it was January/February)

There is a kitten season - worldwide. It is from about October to March in the Southern Hemisphere and from about April to September in the Northern Hemisphere. Perhaps the times you describe were in the non kitten season.

Ok thanks for that Kumbulu..good point so can the UK rescuers confirm that in kitten season here in the UK we have a kitten over population/homing crisis or do these kittens find homes?

If there is a crisis, is it split between domesticated cats and ferals? Or is it mainly ferals?

Do kittens born in the kitten season and who end up in rescue shelters find homes quickly?

Do the kittens born at this time who are advertised for sale privately find homes quickly too generally?

What im trying to ascertain is the extent of the problem.

I'm in the US, but kitten season....about mid-June it is really hard to place kittens & we end up with many who grow up in cages. All "kitten season" it is impossible to re-home adults.

I dont know about in the UK. But my rescue has to be very careful to not take in to many kittens. Because after the first month or so of kitten season its hard to place kittens. All winter people come in asking for kittens we might have one or two. And everyone wants them. Then comes kitten season and you watch the kittens getting bigger and bigger because there are just so many. My babies will be one of the first litters in our rescue put up for adoption this year. So hopefully they will be adopted quickly.

Years ago in the UK, I was looking for a cat in the winter, and I could not find a kitten. I was very happy in the end to get my Cinders (now living with my mother) who was a rescued stray, about a year old. But in the spring, I got a number a phone calls from people asking if I was still looking, as they had kittens available. So yes, I think Jan ad Feb are quiet months.

Hi, I'm in the UK and have 4 cats - 2 are brothers that we got together. We have got our cats at several points throughout the year, including 'kitten season' and out of it and we have always had trouble getting one! We used to get the ad paper very early on the morning that it went on sale and everyone we phoned said they were gone already! It took us quite a few weeks to get a kitten each time. I have often asked this question myself, when people say about the kitten pop being overpopulated as also all throughout my childhood 2 friends each had at least 2 female cats having 4-6 kittens at least once a year for years and years and they never ever had trouble finding homes for them! In fact they still had phone calls from people weeks after they had all gone and had people travelling upto 80 miles away to get them!

All I can think of the reason being, here in the UK, why people are against cats breeding is because of all the older cats in the shelters and that people are going to choose a kitten over an older cat, given the choice.

yes it is a big problem in the uk.
our kitten season is mostly between march and october but with the warmer winters we have been having there has been more and more kittens born after october, and all year.
kittens do tend to go quickly weather its from a rescue or an ad in the paper. this is why its so hard to find homes for the adult cats.
the rescue called CHAT mainly deals with strays/ferals and abounded cats/kittens, but when kittens do come in they do go quickly , and the adults always get overlooked. this rescue also does a low cost spay and neuter and cheeper vacs,worming and flee treatments. and also vetenary care for the public. so if you are on benfits they will provide a spay/neutere voucher so it will only cost you £5.00 to spay / neuter your cat/kitten. and if you are not on benfits but cannot afford a priviate vet they charge £25.00 for a spay and £18 for a neuter. the reason being there trying so hard to get the population down.
there injections for the basic ones flu etc.. are £9.50 each weather your on benfits or not. and an extra £7.00 for the felv one.
also the problem is not just with ferals or strays , it is split between home cats and stray/feral.
like today i had someone ask me if i would take her nearly 1 year old cat tabby and white as she has a new baby and he likes getting into the crib. so i nicely suggested closing the bedroom door so he cannot get in or get a mesh cover and put it over the cot. she said no she thinks it will be better for him to be homed. i can not personally take this cat as his a nearly full grown male ( my adult males will not except another adult male weather his been neutered or not) but i think i may have found someone to take him hopefully. his not been neutered she just didnt get around to it but its things like this why adult cats get thrown aside , she said if she had the baby first then got a kitten she could train him not to go in the crib. she forgets cats are not stupid they can be tought.

I foster for 2 rescues in the UK. One is a large rescue and this is whom I am fostering petal and her babies for and the other is a small rescue.

Both has limited space, especially the small rescue, and also funding, so they are limited on how many cats they can take in. Both are no-kill rescues. They can only take in more cats/kittens when there is space, so especially with the smaller rescue, there is often no kittens in due to this. So the amount of kittens in a rescue isn't necesary a good indication of if there is a overpopulation of kittens. The small rescue had a 12 year old cat looking for a home fo 2 years, but happily her fosterer has decided to adopt her. In my experiance black and black/white cats and kittens are also more difficult to rehome. Kittens do generaly tend to be rehomed quickly, but saying this,last year i did a private rescue of 2 feral mums and their kittens. Although 2 went at 14 weeks, the others did not find homes until they were nearly a year old. They were mostly black/white. A lovely lady took one of the mums and the other is still with me and will stay.

Some of the reasons people want to get rid of their cats are unbelievable. One because her cat would cover its business in his littertray. Others because they have brought a new kitten and their old cat doesn't like it. There are of course people who need to find a new home for their cat because of genuine reasons.

You often round her see kittens being sold for silly prices. A rescent one a 'pedigree' tabby cat for £250 (He was, although gorgeous a moggie).

I don't work for a rescue but I gather from those who do that there are plenty of kittens around, especially during kitten season in the summer. It depends a lot on where you go and when. One rescue may say they have no kittens at a particular time while another may be indundated with kittens. There are definitely kittens around although as you rightly say, there are so many older cats needing homes too. And to a lot of people anything over about 6 months counts as older! I got Jaffa from a rescue as an 8 week old kitten, albeit that was 10 years ago.

Incidentally, if you or anyone you know is looking for a rescue kitten (or cat) there is a good list of rescues here

http://www.catchat.org/adoption/index.html

Private ads such as gumtree have loads of kittens for sale, many at ridiculous prices. It's not a good place to go unless all other avenues have been explored as the people who sell on there will not stop breeding their poor cats as long as they can sell their kittens for silly prices

In my experiences kittens go very quickly. A friend of our family was looking for a kitten a month or so ago and tried all the shelters round her...no kittens. She then thought about adopting an older cat maybe 1 or 2 , but our local shelter said no to her as her postcode was outside their catchment area (how crazy is that?!) She ended up buying a kitten for £50 from a farm litter

i know about the crazy prices. i was looking through the ads the other day (always have a look) when im bored. and there were this 1 litter , 2 tabbys and 2 all white
1 male tabby only £60
1 female tabby £80
1 white female £150
1 white male £130
due to it being very rare for white cats not to be deaf is why the price is higher , and the females are higher priced as when there older you can make money back from her kittens!!!!!!!!!
oh and they were only 7 weeks old
ads like these really saddens me.

I don't if anyone mentioned this, I didn't read carefully thru all the posts, but all those older cats needing rehomed were once the kittens that got snapped up and they are probably being replaced by more new kittens

this is very true, and its really sad. The kittens will get snapped up as they are cute, i guess they need to be extra careful its to the right owners or they may well come back as adults an then get stuck there

Originally Posted by nicochick

All I can think of the reason being, here in the UK, why people are against cats breeding is because of all the older cats in the shelters and that people are going to choose a kitten over an older cat, given the choice.

Click to expand...

People who are pro spay/neuter are against cats breeding because they understand that there is no reason a female domestic cat should go through pregnancy and birth.

Many people don't know that when kittens are advertised 'free to good home', they are sometimes taken by people who want to feed them to their pet (snakes, other reptiles) or people from laboratories, wanting animals to conduct experiments on.

That is why it is so important to never, ever offer kittens for free. As well as asking a few questions to make sure the kitten will be safe and well cared for, you should always ask for payment for the kitten. Even $15 or $20 is enough to put off the 'bad' types.

Edited to add: I do understand that some pets require live food. It should never be kittens though.

Actually snakes should be fed dead food, its more humane as they cannot get injuried. The idea of fedding kittens to snakes is hidious, both for the poor kitten and the snake who may get injured.

In my opinion snakes don't make good pets anyway and the types who are big enough to eat kittens can be harmful to people if they get their coils around you.

They are wild animals who will NEVER BE TAME

( In my opinion) Beautiful but WILD

Awful thought that...kittens being fed to snakes

Just to answer some of your questions....but your questions have raised more than
questions to me.....these questions I can tell you are the kind of questions I have
been proposed by unscrupulous breeders

In MY honest experience

minxie...Ok I hope I dont come across as ignorant here, I genuinely dont know the answer and hope someone can nicely tell me it. I just wanted to know from the UK rescuers if the kitten overpopulation problem is a big problem here in the UK?

Yes It is a big problem....just as it is in any part of the world with 'unplanned '
pregnancies and Irresponsible pet owners.

Why I ask this is because of my experiences 3 years ago, when I was looking for a kitten. I had previously taken in an older cat from a rescue shelter and wanted a kitten at that time to 'fit in' with the older cat (and of course experience the joys of kitten ownership).
I rang numerous shelters in my area and they had no kittens. When I contacted people advertising domestic moggies privately, all the kittens had gone. All that was available were pure breed cats or 'semi pure breed cats' (e.g. people trying to make money from half persians and siamese) for over £100. I eventually found kitten Tinkerbelle after 2 months of looking. A domestic tortie for £50. I admit, I did not look outside my county for travelling purposes.

Sorry

but I don't understand your line of questioning...why would you..... an
'ordinary person' want to know the ' supply and demand' statistics'

In the rescue shelters which I visited, it seemed the BIG problem they faced was rehoming older cats, not rehoming kittens. To quote someone I dealt with at a rescue place 'the kittens go like hotcakes'.

So would you say this is a reason to breed moggies?

Even when I put my kittens last year in a cattery when I went on a weekend break, the cattery owner said to me that he could have 'sold the kittens 5 times over'..people dropping off their cats at the cattery saw my kittens (then about 4 months old) and were willing to pay good cash for them, until they realised the kittens were boarding themselves and not for sale.

Is this anymore reason to breed moggies ?

So what is the situation in the UK?

The situation in the UK is just like anywhere else in the world...People breeding
moggies and selling them to pet shops to earn a quick buck...Pet shops sell them
to the first person that comes through the door...they go to their new ' homes'
un-neutered and un-spayed AND UN-VACCINATED, I hope that answers THAT QUESTION for you.



I admit I havent talked to my local cat welfare organisations about this. TCS is always my first port of call lol. And its something I need to be clued up about especially if Im looking at fostering soon.

To be Honest Mel,and I'm not being funny or nasty but just honest as you do seem
to want answers.
I know for a fact no Rescue would for a better word 'entertain' you as a possible foster,
If they were to know about the unplanned pregnancies of your own cats in the past,
because they want people who are responsible and that they can trust with the lives
of the cats and kittens and if they were to know about your cats I know they would
see you as a ' liability' so to speak...because they could not be sure that the fosters
would not escape and end up getting pregnant.

It's just not worth the risk to them


Is it a case of the kittens go quick..many of which to irresponsible owners..and then end up when they are older in rescue shelters? Whats going on?

In the uk Cp and all animal charities keep records of how many kittens are born to
each mother and they are homed with a legal requirement to neuter/spay at the
designated age.....if that is not done the rescue will confiscate and re-home the'pet'
to a responsible owner.
Only animals bought and sold in 'pet shops' and in the local 'pub' or 'street corner'
will probably end up being dumped, abused, killed or abandoned.because there is
no ' record' of them ever being alive or even who their owners are.

Or is it a case of 'wrong place wrong time'? e.g. if I was in contact with you Uk rescuers at the time, 3 years ago, you would have been able to to point me in the direction of so many kittens needing homes? Or it just wasnt kitten season at that time? (it was January/February)


I hope this has enlightened you a little bit to the plight of animals bred unneccesarily.