I think I want a kitten/s but can't seem to find any.

[wannaBe]

so, had to have my seventeen year old cat pts in May. Had her and her sister since they were kittens which I got from the RSPCA seventeen years ago. Her sister died a year earlier of thyroid related issues, and this one was healthy to the end but I found her with injuries consistent with having been hit by a car.

I always said that I wouldn't have another cat but now that she's gone I miss having a cat terribly. Plus we've lost a few animals over the past couple of years (the two cats, hamster, rabbit all due to age) and haven't replaced any of them so I feel that I need another baby.

I've always wanted a siamese, but tbh I don't think that finance will stretch to a pure bred cat, so in the absence of a siamese kitten I would like a kitten/s, except having looked around they seem almost impossible to find, even though there is talk of rescues being overrun with kittens.

My local cat rescues have no kittens available atm. Battersea is about half an hour from here, but all their kittens currently show as not being suitable for rehoming with dogs (I have a guide dog who is oblivious to cats so not an issue) and besides battersea is currently so overwhelmed with rehoming applications that they have apparently disabled their online application process.

And even having looked on gumtree and local ads people are selling moggie kittens for upwards of £150 while I have no qualms in paying a rescue for a kitten I really don't want to pay someone else for one and thus encourage them to allow their cat to produce more kittens. iyswim.

so, where are all these unwanted kittens that people talk about?

Are you just looking at websites or are you ringing about? Kittens don't always go on the website and there are often pregnant Mums in so the kittens are yet to arrive IYKWIM.

Do you have a Cats Protection locally?

We (Celia Hammonds) currently have at least 150 kittens needing homes. I've got four of them myself in my spare room. Where are you?

The problem is we only home small kittens in pairs. We have plenty of older kittens (say 5 months) that would go as singles though.

I'm in orpington tc. would be happy to have two,

I think you're probably in the catchment area for our Lewisham branch (we have catchment areas as we have to do home checks). If they say you're out of the area let me know. I'm so desperate to find homes for my four that I'd be prepared to do an out-of-area home check myself. (They're about 11 weeks, black and white, very friendly and already neutered).

Agree with Sparkling to phone. Places sometimes operate a list. Does it have to be a kitten? Slightly older cats are harder to home.
We will be kitty hunting shortly. But are far West of you catneuterer!

Looks as if your kittens are already being groomed for stardom at TCN Towers, OP. (The 'stardom' referring to the photos you're going to have to post for us.)

Good luck - and I look forward to the pics.

ok tcn I do fall into lewisham catchment.

I had no idea they could be neutered so young now. When I adopted my last two they were approx ten weeks and I took them back to be neutered at 5/6 months iirc. Very trusting of them i must say, since it was down to me to make the appointment to have them spayed and they were both female so I could potentially have just let them breed. this was rspca mind and they didn't even do a home check, said they were so desperate to rehome cats that they were happy to just let them go. although that was seventeen years ago...

just to add does being in lewisham catchment make me ineligible for your kittens? would I need to adopt ones from lewisham branch....?

Well it's just that you might as well go to Lewisham (I'm with Canning Town). Their home checkers are nearer to you so it just makes sense. They have lots and lots of kittens too.

Cozie I've been trying to get photos but it's so difficult. Celia wants photos of them snuggling together. They have never snuggled once. They don't even appear to sleep ever, or even stay still. And they certainly never stay still in the same spot as each other. And their mother hates them and growls at them and swipes them if they come to close to her. None of this is conducive to good photos.

That should be 'too' close. I'm not illiterate - honest.

Commendably even-handed of you there, TCN. I know the aim is to re-home all cats and kittens and all but still....................

OK so I've just had a go at photographing them. That was Mum cat looking remarkably docile, just before launching another unprovoked attack on littlest kitten :( Boy kitten is nowhere to be seen in any of these photos.

Littlest kitten is in fact her stepkitten. But she hates her own offspring equally, so she's not really a wicked stepmothercat.

My local rescue is overrun with kittens - when I went in a few weeks ago they had a basket full of kittens that they were hand rearing.
DH said he was lucky to get me out of there with just the one cat.

Actually, TCN, she looks in that photo as if she's just ready to pounce on something. (Sorry.) Fascinating markings.

Ah - my apologies. I think I got my photos wrong. I meant the white hoop markings on that black and white kitten.

bbut, but, but, i just read on the chat site that they rehome mums with kittens because they will look out for the kittens. or is your mum kitten just particularly sadistic?

oops mum cat....

Mum cats usually turn on kittens though op, it's natures way of getting them to sod off and live independently

I imagine parents of teenagers feel much the same way. Fluffycats mom was swiping and hissing at him at 17 weeks old, he wasn't really bothered by it.

Well it all depends. Mum cats generally seem to be protective of their kittens until they are nearly adult, and even then they usually remain close (well in domestic situations anyway), but no, this mum cat is unusual in her lack of motherly love.

I really wish I lived in catchment for CHAT. I'm far too far out of London though, sadly. And I really would like our household to be 1 cat per human. Even if DH's nominal cat would rather sit on me and cover me in mud the little sod, and mine won't because she prefers the next door neighbour!

They are also a mum and her kitten, and they don't get on that well. We get some phenomenal hissing and yowling sometimes.

I only want a little ginger boy

Stepping Stones rescue (in South Croydon) also has loads of kittens, OP - and Orpington is just down the road from there!

ring shelters. there's a cats rescue home I think I saw their stall at a market a few years back and made enquiries didn't get my kitten from there though.

www.catcuddles.org.uk/