Kittens and possible building work

[IrritableBitchSyndrome]

A family member's cat has kittens, ready in a couple of weeks. We have fallen in love with them and would love to take two BUT are trying to get traction on fairly extensive building work. The building work may or may not end up happening, and we have no way to know when it might start yet. It's complicated and too soon to know when or what might happen. It seems risky to the happiness of the cats as it would be very disruptive to them. My head knows it's the wrong time to take on cats but my heart wants to believe it could all work out. Anyone with any experience of young cats and building work that found it was all fine, or is this a disastrous idea?

Oh dear, probably not a good idea and should probably hand them straight to me!
Apologies for being facetious but I would think plan now for the kittens. Everything we’ve had booked re work, furniture delivery etc has been postponed so many times. Given our experience, I’m sure your kittens would be full grown cats nicking builders sausage rolls by the time work gets scheduled but you’re very sensible to consider. Do you have enough room to give them a secure place in case work did coincide with them just joining you?

It would definitely be a total disastrous idea during the first 6 months but if you don't have contracts in place yet you can adjust your building aspirations to say that you are looking to book in work to start in March 2022 or later. tbh you will have a better experience of building anyway in that case because the best tradespeople will already have at least the next 3-4 months booked solid anyway so the further in advance you are booking, the more likely that the highly recommended, reliable people will be available.

Make sure you get the kittens neutering done as early as your vets will recommend is ok, because you will want them to have completely recovered from that (takes longer for girls than for boys). Ensure they are totally settled and try to ensure that when they come to you the rooms they feel most at-home in are ones that aren't going to be affected by the building work. Make a comfy area with places to sleep and access to food, water and litter that cats can be shut into if necessary - not to keep them in long-term but just so you have a plan for keeping them safe e.g. on the day that concrete is being poured and you want to be 100% sure no cat is hiding in the foundations that are about to become permanently inaccessible.

I don't speak from experience though. We delayed getting kittens till after our building work was finished but it was 9 months from when the house was ready till when we found kittens that were available (and not stupidly expensive) - I had no idea it would be so difficult so the fact that these are kittens from a friend will make a huge difference.

The kittens would have to be shut in carpeted bedrooms for some of the time which isn't ideal as cat food, litter, tiny bladders seem a bad match for carpet and beds, but those would be the rooms least affected by building work. Downstairs is very open plan. We have a very wet retaining wall in the garage which needs investigation and an opinion from a structural engineer before the architect and builder can even agree plans, then planning permission will need an amendment and the mortgage will need extending. Could be quick, could be slow.

Kittens will arrive having been litter trained by their mum so long as they get to stay with mum long enough - breeders often claim that kittens are ready to leave mum at 10 weeks (when they generally haven't quite got the hang of litter yet) but it's better for them to stay with mum till 14 weeks if possible - which it should be as these are coming from your friends. Our kittens were 12 weeks and were mostly fine but just needed a little help identify the difference between a litter tray and a few other locations which could easily be misidentified as a litter tray by an inexperienced kitten in an unfamiliar environment, but they clearly knew and understood what was supposed to happen on a theoretical level.

I have no regrets

Aww 😻