05/24/2022 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 05/24/2022 09:10
The warm spring weather brings cat mating season to Sacramento, leading to thousands of kittens born throughout the city.
Many of these kittens are found by well-intentioned good Samaritans and brought to the Front Street Animal Shelter - but the shelter warns that doing so isn't always in the best interest of the kittens.
"People's first instinct when they see kittens is usually to scoop them up, but that's often the wrong thing to do," said Ryan Hinderman, communications manager for the shelter. "Even with bottle feeding, kittens have a significantly reduced rate of survival without their mother's milk. If the kittens are pear-shaped and plump, clean, and not yelling in distress, they have a mom, who may leave her kittens for several hours to get food."
Here are the shelter's recommendations if you find kittens:
For the kittens who do come to the shelter, volunteers are always needed to help care for them.
"We are always in need of more kitten foster parents who can raise them until old enough for adoption," Hinderman said. "Our greatest need is fosters for the 'bottle babies,' who were accidentally taken from their mothers or who, in rare cases, were abandoned by their mothers."
The shelter struggles to find foster homes for these vulnerable kittens because they require feeding several times a day, which may mean waking up in the middle of the night when they get hungry.
To become a foster volunteer for kittens, visit the shelter's foster page at https://www.cityofsacramento.org/Community-Development/Animal-Care/Foster-Care