There are no rescue kittens

[ThinkAboutItTomorrow]

I posted in May about looking for a kitten. On the advice here we've avoided breeders and gumtree etc but there are no rescue kittens. We've been signed up since May with all the ones on catchat and Battersea dogs and cats home (they vetted us and approved us). No luck.

We have 2 older cats and really want a kitten.

Does anyone have any ideas?

I ru a cat charity in France and can't find homes for all ours!

Over in Ireland here and I've never ever seen so many kittens, it's so sad. (No help to you, sorry!)

Cats Protection?

Everybody wants a kitten. As soon as the rescue shelters get any in, they are snapped up. Give it a while for them to grow up and not be cute kittens any more and some of them will be right back in the shelter again. That's why the shelters are full of adult cats.

Blue Cross. Depends where you are. Just seen kitten on there (reserved) but in my local area. A friend once told me to ring them up as they always have kittens.
Btw, I’d love two/three cats but we’re just about to move, so it’d be unsettling.

Definitely check cats protection. There are local Facebook pages with cats needing rehoming.

Definitely search on FB - rescue local to me is swamped in kittens.

If you’ve got a local chat group ask on there if anybody knows the names of local rescues - ours is called Little Tinkers 🙄 and doesn’t show a location.

Thanks for the suggestions. Cats protection, Celia Hammond and Blue Cross all seem to have waiting lists. One is even quoting 3 year wait!

I guess with everyone wfh it's the perfect time to be able to adopt and care for a new cat.

If we could get to Ireland or France we'd love to help.

Adult cat?

I second FB although I you do have to be on the ball. Different groups have different ways of allocating kittens. Also registering with all the smaller charities. After 8 weeks we were contacted by one who had a kitten available. Oh and I'd get two, less demanding of your time 😊

If you can get one that's around a year old it's ideal. My two were still so kittenish (they were 10 months or 13 months or somewhere in between, no one was exactly sure) but their personalities had already developed so I knew what I was getting (snuggle bugs!). With young kittens you don't know if you'll have a good personality fit and they are only at the teeny stage a little while.

My local charity has been homing kittens throughout spring and summer (I used to volunteer there and still talk to many of the current volunteers) and if anything, has had more than ever coming in.

Is it because you're looking for something specific? For example, most charities prefer to home kittens in pairs so if there is an even number in the litter, they are going to home them to someone wanting a pair. Or have you asked for a specific colour for example? Also sometimes people were kept on waiting lists if the location wasn't ideal, or if they were small children in the home and all the available kittens were quite shy and better suited to adult homes. A lot of charities are also so busy that they are not super organised - if you haven't contacted them again to remind them you're still interested, they may have just lost your name/application along the way.

@thecatneuterer Have you got any kittens?.

No @viccat we are open to one or a bonded pair and don't care about colour or even sex.

We're close to giving up and seeing if gumtree has any that we feel sure aren't breeders. There's a woman about an hour away who seems ok....

I completely understand, locally only Cats Protection have had any kittens (and then only a few) and due to a shocking previous experience I would never approach them. We are signed up to all local rescues including one we have used before but the waiting lists are huge. We have 4 cats at present, several rescued as young/adult cats and after the loss our 18 year old girl would like a kitten but it doesn't seem possible.
Have looked a pets4homes, Preloved etc and you see the same posters time and time again. Many say that the kittens haven't been vet checked or started vaccinations. I think it's a big risk to take.

fwiw I did get a kitten once, locally (less than 10 minutes away), from Pets4Homes & had no problems. The person had one female cat & a couple of dogs, & her cat had 4 kittens.
I visited her once to meet him & see the setup (she definitely wasn't a breeder - tiny house surrounded by other tiny houses), & then went again to collect him. He's been perfectly healthy
So worth a look.

Have you looked here?felinefriendslondon.uk/adoption/ezzy-zinzy-suki-abi
If you scroll down, you can see many kittens; some of whom you have to adopt in pairs.

felinefriendslondon.uk/adoption/

Feline friends have a long waiting list though. I tried them.

Here are my tips:

• be willing to take a pair
• find small rescue centres on catchat (I discovered there were about 30 little ones in my county I didn't know about)
• email rescue centres direct, as they won't put kittens on website or Facebook
• look at rescue centres in nextdoor county if you're willing to travel

There's a lot more places than just Cats Protection and blue cross.

Good luck 🍀

Might be worth putting your name forward at local vets too. That is how we got our overlord. A customer of the vet found an abandoned litter, she kept them until they were approx 14 wks then had them vet checked before they were separated and rehomed. It cost £70 but that was to cover the cost of vet check, first imms, and microchip.
A bargain for all the love she brings.

Do you have any small rescue places near you? Have a look on Facebook. Like you, we had been waiting since May and we are currently fostering a mum and her 4 kittens and will get our pick of the litter. If you have other cats you'd need to be able tprovide a separate room for them and ensure your exisiting cats are neutered and fully vaccinated but there are still lots of pregnant cats out there who need help.

Celia Hammonds do have kittens, and they are still coming in all the time. What we do have though is a bit of a logistical and space problem. We have a limited number of homing employees, who do the organisation/homechecks etc and they have a lot to do. So there is definitely a bit of a log jam there. Also there are more kittens needing to come in than we have the space/employees/vets to deal with all at once. So that does mean there is a waiting list, but we are getting through it.

@ThinkAboutItTomorrow If you can pm with with your details I can look into it for you (I'm with Canning Town) and maybe speed things along a bit.

How much are you prepared to pay? Where I am, kittens needing homes are two a penny.

Happy to pay (up to maybe £300) but am worried the ones charging lots are breeding for cash?