Buying a kitten on Gumtree - wise?

[Brixtonrunner]

Cat people I need your help. No experience of cats previously but our family lifestyle now allows for a pet. We're keen on a British shorthair kitten because they're apparently easy going and adaptable to being an indoors cat. We're looking on Gumtree and there are loads of sellers, very few seem to be registered sellers though - is this a must? We've read through the Gumtree cat buyers guide and it suggests sellers should be registered but barely any are. Are we taking a risk to buy from a seller who isn't? Most seem to offer kittens who are weaned, de-flea and de- wormed and pictured seen with mother but not with father and prices ranging from £500 to £1000 (would prefer the lower end of price range). Any other advice/considerations would be massively appreciated.

@Lovetheplace I just read your update, that's a shame and just shows how many irresponsible owners and breeders there are if the charities are full. I do know someone who had a similar situation but she gave them away for free to friends and colleagues who were known to her.

Cats protection told me to just keep leaving food for them but I keep saying they are really tiny ?? I was scared about foxes getting them so managed to trap them in my shed. I’m really allergic so couldn’t have them in the house and needed to keep them safe

Do not buy a kitten off gumtree. A family member did this a few years ago and ended up with a cat that had lifelong problems - it ended up costing an absolute fortune in vets bills because some of its problems were uninsurable.

A £70 kitten ended up costing thousands. Better to eat the cost upfront of buying a quality cat from a registered breeder.

I was shocked , I was calling places further and further out from me and all were full. I was really shocked the rspca didn’t even call back or answer. !!

I didn’t even have a clue what to do luckily they drank the kitten milk from bowls and ate wet food and had water. They were beautiful I actually wished I wasn’t allergic !

I offered them and nobody wanted them 😭 but actually in a way the person who got them immediately knew they were too young and needed to stay together and she even sent me pictures afterwards up until they were rehomed .
No idea what happened to the mum they just appeared in my garden one day

@Lovetheplace sorry I wrote my post before seeing your update, that is shocking, poor little things - the rescues are just swamped. Breeders on gumtree don't help the situation, breeding animals for profit should be banned IMO.

1. Don't give money to people who abuse cats to sell kittens on gumtree. The life of a breeding "queen" is hellish.

One of our cats used to be one. She's terrified of men, feet, being shut in and unneutered male cats.

1. Don't imprison a healthy cat indoors for no good reason.

You remember lockdown right? Not fun was it? And we were allowed out.

Don't do that to an animal just because you can. It's cruel.

I was really shocked as I thought I’d call one place and they’d come and collect them ! I was getting really stressed about them and foxes or flea anaemia etc so I got desperate

Please get a rescue cat.

My goodness. Do you really need to ask!!

If you're prepared to spend in the hundreds just save up a tiny bit more and go to a breeder.

OR go to the breed rescue club for an older cat.

Ask yourself why these people aren't registered (and charging the full amount) if they're really selling genuine breed standard healthy kittens.

The answer is the obvious one: because they aren't.

A pedigree kitten should have had at least 2 vet visits with papers, with checks on heart ect. as well as micro chipped, wormed, flu vacs and flea treatment and neutered.

Should you buy a kitten from Gumtree?

Short answer - no.

Long answer - hell no.

Many of these kittens come from unscruplous breeders and won't be healthy, cared for properly or socialised. Please approach your local animal rescue shelters, or have a look on the notice board in your local vet's surgery, where responsible people sometimes put animals for sale.

I got two kittens from Blue Cross, they are brothers and are super happy being indoors only. I can leave the front door open and they don't go near it.

The key is to shoo them away from it from the day you get them, also make sure you neuter asap, as that makes a big difference. I firmly believe that neutering at 4 months creates much better temperaments in male cats.

My third cat is a Maine Coon from a breeder. Reputable breeders will have their own website and you are looking at £900 plus.
You are paying for genetic testing and good bloodlines as unfortunately purebred cats can have issues.

None of my cats show any need to go out and are all happy, content and loving, but I am mostly at home and give them a lot of attention which helps.

I don't see anything wrong with using an ethical breeder who takes care of it's mothers (only 3 or 4 litters total and at least a year between).

Flat cats make window coverings which are good when you have indoor cats.
You will also need scratching posts, toys, cat trees and plenty of time to play.

Make sure you feed grain and sugar free food. Thrive dry is the best on the market, but cats should be mostly eating wet food.

EverClean cat litter is the best on the market. You need a good one for indoors

Thanks for the great advice all. This will be the only chance of a pet while my dd is at home in the few years before uni so I want her to experience caring for and watching her pet grow from being young. We're registered with local shelters but no kittens available. And we have plenty of time off over summer to help a pet get settled in their new home, less so in autumn or winter so the next month is a good time to find a kitten -hence exploring avenues other than shelters. The sellers we were looking at on Gumtree were offering home visits to see the kittens in situ with their mum and first vaccinations and a documented health check before being released at 9- 12 weeks. The consensus on here though is clearly that these sellers are not to be trusted. Really glad I asked and I'll go down the registered seller route if we have no luck with a shelter over next month. Thanks again for the advice.

It's kitten season @Brixtonrunner

Most rescues will have multiple litters of kittens in their care currently.

It can take quite a long time to be matched with a pet from a shelter. Be patient!

I am glad you are taking the advice offered.

My lovely little cat was used by a proper breeder and still dumped in a rescue when she was two after having a couple of very expensive pedigree litters. My DC haven’t got to see her grow from a kitten but they got to experience seeing her turn from almost feral and terrified of people into the worlds most cuddly lap cat.

I know of a couple locally who just let their cat get repeatedly pregnant and sell the kittens, most of them die either before they are sold or later on. The queen or the local Tom has some sort of heart defect, but they still get £250 for any that survive as the buyers are not aware.

We had a Gumtree kitten (albeit it we took him in after a dimwit relative bought him for £350 and then realised they couldn't cope).

He's now a happy and healthy almost 3yo and we all adore him. He didn't come with any health issues but it was definitely dodgy. When relative went to get him the seller didn't give their actual address, just the name of a block of flats. So only contact details my relative had was a phone number and a block of flats. There would have been no recourse had there been any issue with the kitten. FWIW he was litter trained and weaned etc but it was more luck than anything else.

The other thing I would ask you to consider is if it is kind to the cat to encourage him or he to bond with someone who is leaving for Uni in a matter of weeks and will be gone most of the time.

Ours are both indoor cats - we have a BSH and Ragdoll, both from decent breeders who advertised on pets for homes. My mum has a ragdoll from her and I love the breed hence why I wanted a doll, their temperament is fantastic.

A lot of ragdoll breeders specify indoor only, because the Breed doesn't sense danger

I also worry too much about them on the roads and too many nasty people around nowadays - I won't have another free roam cat. I think if they've been indoors since kittens they're fine.

I'd be asking to see papers, how often they've been flea and worm treated and what with, whether they've had any jabs etc. We viewed our BSH before buying him and got to meet dad and mum and see where they were kept etc.

Look up the breed traits. So many times you will see "breeds" advertised that if you know the breed they clearly are not it. Ragdoll is a very common one

The breeders comments will tell you a lot. They should be open to questions. We asked a BSH "breeder" if the kittens had been flea treated. No he doesn't bother because the parents bring them in from outside?!?! Instant red flag and ran very quickly in the opposite direction

I also wouldn't get a moggy again - when we first moved in together we got one from pets for homes - he looked sweet but on viewing him we should have walked away - viewed him in their tiny entrance hall, the carpet was grim (I'm not a snob but...)

Stupidly brought him home. Nicknamed him Alley Cat as he was always trying to get in the bin/steal food. He went blind in one eye in the December after getting him in May that year. Vet suspected even though we'd injected him against FIV he picked it up before (so at the "breeder").

His abdomen never felt right, he then went badly downhill, not really thriving, tummy like a water balloon. Google suggested FIP, which more often than not can't be cured. He frequently had diarrhoea all his life. Took him to the vet as he was losing weight and not really eating. They also suggested FIP

Booked him in for a scan, he didn't make it to the scan as a couple of days before he peed in a cardboard box. Thought it was odd. Woke up at 2am to him having liquid diarrhoea on the carpet.

Went down the next morning as popped him in the kitchen overnight. He'd had more bloody diarrhoea and was just lying there, it was like he'd given up

AC was PTS that morning. It was around the time of the Applaws dry food issue, and as we fed Applaws I will always wonder if that hastened his demise, but I'm convinced he had FIP too - if the scan had revealed that he'd have been PTS as the end stage is horrific

AC wasn't even a year old.

We then had to contact his "breeder" to get her name so we could claim on his insurance. She only went and offered us another kitten!!! (Yet apparently she'd only bred AC as her cat got out during lockdown before she could spay her - this was a year later...)

She's lucky I didn't answer the phone, OH was way too polite. Found the advert of the kittens and they looked sickly. And one very like AC. So much for an "accident" mating...

Unlikely to be a genuine BSH of on gumtree. My Persians we're advertised on gumtree and thankfully a rescue spotted they were being kitten farmed. There both had health issues as one died at 8. All problems cause but their early life.

Gosh, some real cautionary tales on here, thanks for sharing. The kittens our local shelters have are all males weirdly and we really want a female. We've spotted a lovely 14 month old female at a shelter not too far away who is blind in one eye. Given we're keen to have an indoors cat (we live beside a horribly busy road) this kind of cat may be better suited (and we can certainly give her the love and care she needs).
Honest question - how do we know we won't get a sickly cat or one with longer term health issues down the road if we get from a shelter rather than a private buyer? Surely the risk is the same?

@verdantverdure my dd has a good five years yet (not weeks) before uni so plenty time to care for and love a pet :)

We bought a kitten off gumtree for £80. She's perfect. 9 months old.now and healthy. We tried for over a year to get one from a rescue but no luck. They either didn't have any or said we live on a Road so can't have one 🤷. Mad. She's an outdoor cat and is loving life, out and about all day.

I don't think the.person we bought off was dodgy but who knows? Anyway, all.of this to say buying off gumtree isn't the worst thing in the world.

Oh good @Brixtonrunner I skim read too quickly!

Rescue cats will have had multiple vet visits and checks, and they generally are trusted honest organisations.

A random on gumtree, not so much.

Pretty much all cats develop something at some point. One of ours is on Thyronorm which costs £45 a month and requires three monthly checks, plus annual blood tests, and he will be for the rest of his days.

(Plus flea treatments and annual jabs)

(Vet costs are how I know we have to fight to keep the NHS tooth and nail. )

Why do you want a female?

bugger all difference IMO once neutered.