free to £500

[Teapot74]

have just started looking into getting a feline friend. Love the look of a scottish folds just for the cute factor. Very confused that an old moggie forme the RSPCA costs £70 a pedegree cat costs 5/600 on one website but is free on another??? I am v aware of puppy farming and what goes on with dogs but am clueless when it comes to the cat world. Any advice please??

a free pedigree cat? hmmm I had some experience of this when I was looki.ng for my Siamese.i spoke to a breeder who wanted a good home for one of her older breeding females.
maybe this was the case - I spose it depends whether you want a kitten or are prepared to take on an older cat (with possible health issues/vets bills.)tread carefully.

Rescues seek fees but they're not at a commercial level given that they may have to bring the cat back to health with vet treatment and meds, neuter, vaccinate and chip them and house and feed them for some time if the cat is unlucky. It's a donation really and varies widely with the rescue.

Breeders aim to cover (at least) all their costs - and some of them to make money from it.

I don't know much about folds or their breeders so another poster may be able to comment on them. I would just caution to do one heck of a lot of research before you buy a cat from a breeder. There are excellent ones and some very very bad ones.

no they are kittens
kittensforadoption.co.uk
looks too good to be true to me????

You might find \link{http://www.icatcare.org/advice-centre/cat-care/thinking-getting-cat\this} useful. There are extra links within the section.

weird website op - ambiguous wording too - maybe the ads are free?

I've only had time to do a quick look see but several serious concerns seem to have been raised about this site - and its parent site in the US.

Among them are non-existent cats allied with cats who are notionally free but where HUGE amounts have to be paid by wire transfer for 'transportation'. Other posters may have time to do more research.

As you said 'If it looks too good to be true it probably isn't'. I wouldn't touch it with a bargepole. Any site that purports to give away valuable kittens has got to be a bad 'un on first sight. (Unless someone can persuade me otherwise?)

on that website you can place an advert for free the cats are not free,

rescues charge an adoption fee (ours yorkshire cat rescue is £80 for a kitten) which 9 times out of ten no where near covers the costs of the cat while in thier charge and any treatment, chipping, vaccinations, neutering, food, pen costs such as electricity for heating pens,
all rescues at the moment are up to thier gills in kittens, most domestic short haired tabbys look like scottish fold except for the ears

I'd be interested to know whether folds have health issues with those ears? Extreme physical shapes always concern me a little. (Although there may be no justification there.)

have just had a quick look on wickpedia and folds seem to have a condition associated with thier breeding for folded ears which is osteochondrodysplasia which is a degenerative joint disease so because breeders have exagerated the fold aspect of these cats they have created a problem, too long an article to copy and paste in here but OP i would suggest you seriously research this breed very thouroughly before getting one and not all of them have the folded ears so look like a round eyed version of a moggy

Out of interest, issey, is the 'kitten season' coming to an end or is there less of an actual season these days, with changing patterns of habitation and all? (I know you and other rescues are drowning in kittens and cats so was wondering if some respite was around the corner.)

cozie traditional kitten season used to be april till september but with milder winters and people not neutering it seems to be most of the year now, this year our rescue only had february as a month when we didnt have any kittens at all for adoption

There you go, Teapot. Loads of rescue kittens looking for good new homes - as well as cats I'm sure. Myself, I think I'd go for a grown cat. They find it harder to be homed and are often great and loving characters.

PS - Seniorboy joined our household at 13 and is still going pretty strong at 18 nearly 19. I wouldn't have missed one of those many months.

Please consider adopting a rescue cat or kitten first rather than go to a breeder. There are thousands out there looking for homes.

Yes Teapot, please consider a rescue cat or kitten rather than paying for one. There are many, many more cats/kittens in the country than there are homes available. This means that either cats in rescues have to be put down (and many thousands are each week) or that the rescues are so full they are unable to take in any more cats in desperate need.

If you pay for a cat you are encouraging people to bring yet more cats into the world. If you take a cat from a rescue you are being part of the solution, not the problem.

Also of course breeders can be very, very unscrupulous and cause appalling suffering to the animals they use to breed. You wouldn't believe some of the things we've seen.

And Cozie: yes traditionally this is when kitten season begins to tail off, but at the moment there isn't much sign of it. There are still pregnant cats and tiny kittens being brought in all the time. And we do see kittens still being born even in the middle of winter, just not as many of them. And it does seem to be that kitten season is getting more prolonged every year - perhaps it's the mild winters or climate change, or central heating. I've no idea.

Thanks for advice. Don't trust website either. Likely to go down the rescue road. Dd has heart set on a kitten but if it goes well am sure we'd have room for more in the future ;)

Kittens can be a pita though. I want an adult rescue next time.

We just adopted a 6m old kitten & I'm really glad we went for that not the tiny one we were considering as he is robust enough to cope with the kids, litter trained & all round easier while still being fun.

I got a beautiful Norwegian Forest as a rescue. They said he had 'the runs a bit' when nervous.
'The runs a bit' was constant. We had a new baby, so the situation was a disaster. He was lovely and affectionate, but we had to shut him in the kitchen/utility room and were cleaning up after him all day.
We tried Feliway, special diets, several trips to the vets and ££££.
Turns out the poor chap had inoperable bowel cancer.
RIP Max.

Pedigree 'rescue cats' are often free to a good home for a reason.

The most common reasons for Siamese being rescued as far as I've seen are death/long term absence of an owner, not getting on with other cats or the household circumstances changing eg new baby/moves and so on. All of those can usually be dealt with fine by a reasonably experienced new owner.

I'd guess that the reasons for other pedigree cats being put to rescues are pretty similar.

It helps, of course, if you go to a breed rescue because the cat will then have been assessed by people who are experienced in the breed and who will, in all likelihood, arrange for permanent care/fostering of a cat who has problems which can't be solved - like your NFC, Beckamaw. Mind you, breed rescues will usually levy a fee.