How irresponsible is it to just buy a kitten?

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We lost our old boy end of last year, and were ready now for a couple of new cats. I've looked into rescues, but they say all the older cats are too timid to be homed with young children, and even the kittens apparently need "someone who works from home, to give them the love and attention they need". My husband and I are both out the house 7.30-4.30 every day.

So I had a quick look online, and there are a couple of litters of kittens nearby, ready in the next two weeks, which would be perfect. Just how irresponsible is it to buy a kitten off the Internet? What should I be looking out for? What would be non-negotiable red flags for you? Is the whole concept of buying a kitten just socially unacceptable these days?

FWIW the photos are all of bright eyed kittens in a normal family kitchen with their mother. Asking price between £80-120 depending on colour.

There are so many kittens in shelters that need homes - and they'll come to you neutered and jabbed.

Sorry, should have read your post properly. Lots of those problems can be overcome by adopting a pair of litter mates.

I thought they can't be neutered until 4-6 months? Anyway, we only have two shelters within 30 mins drive- one doesn't have any cats younger than 8yo, and the other does have some kittens who will be ready to leave in the next few weeks, but they say they want people who wfh or are at home much of the day, which I'm not.

Maybe I should look further afield. But they'll want to do a home check. I guess I'll just have to phone and ask how far they're willing to travel to do a home check.

I definitely want two together. Maybe I shouldn't be put off by the website, and just call anyway?

If you know what you're doing and want to buy a kitten - I don't think it's terribly irresponsible. You'll probably give them an amazing home compared to many others!

It took me over a year to find a rescue who would let me adopt as we have a trainline nearby (and by nearby I mean multiple fields away 🙄) and they kept knocking me back. If it hadn't been lockdown I probably would have lost all patience and bought as well, but it was just so expensive (2k a kitten 🤮).

I'd give them all call anyway. We had the home check done over video call (basically just had to show them we had a garden) so you could possibly look further afield.

We adopted two kittens from the RSPCA and they were happy for them to go to a home with children (most of their older cats wanted a quiet house so they wouldn't let them go with children). They didn't ask whether we were home in the day.

Our kittens were four months and not neutered so we had to take them to be neutered but it had already been paid for by the RSPCA. I'd definitely recommend getting two if you have kittens, they entertain each other - I think one on its own would be bored if you're out of the house, and that's when they start climbing the curtains and destroying things!

I’ve never heard of this being socially unacceptable. I’ve had rescue cats before but the 2 I have now I found on Gumtree and had from kittens. Make sure you see them with the mother. I kept mine indoors until they were 6 months old. I work full time, my cats are very independent - as cats are!

Why kittens? They are kittens for such a short time, and it's gone in a flash, so why not look for a young adult (or bonded pair) from rescue?

The problem with just buying a kitten is that you are encouraging people to keep their cats entire. This in turn means there are always more cats than good homes. If you ask on a local Facebook page you may find some smaller rescues who have kittens. Ours came vet checked and microchipped. We paid a £60 adoption fee which included spaying when the time was right. Their only requirement was that we didn’t live near a main road, no need to wfh and tbh how would they check this?

Rescue places can be notoriously difficult. They say they struggle to find homes for their animals but they often have a checklist as long as your arm before you're deemed 'acceptable'. As another pp said, there are tons of older cats who need adopting, however these can come with their own issues (feral, health issues etc) which you usually wouldn't get if you adopt right from a young kitten.

Definitely!

They can be fixed when they hit 2lb and most vets that work with rescues are happy with that - I got boy cat from the rescue I used to volunteer for, the only reason he wasn't fixed when I took him home is because he hadn't quite descended yet 😂 but he was done at 12 weeks.

Unfortunately in buying any animal it means another animal waiting for a home in a rescue that is likely to be overcrowded.

Cats Protection are great, depending on where you live I could potentially make some recommendations. It's kitten season too.

My kitten from a rescue centre was never quite right...she died aged 6yrs unexpectedly...

Got two kittens privately from a site...great wee articles and doing well...

Took a friend to a rescue centre to get two kittens...there was a 'miscommunication' and they hadn't booked her in for them..spent an hours drive to be shown some kittens all that couldn't leave due to illness/mum wouldn't let them be handled/ broken leg...

Went and got her one from a site...its doing well so far...

Oh and i got name called and put off an animal rescue site once for innocently enquiring why the kitten i was interested in had to be a house cat and couldn't be let out...

Apparently i was a demon for wanting to let a cat out!

I follow a few cat rescues on Facebook who say they rehome all over the country so maybe try not so local rescues.

Rescue centres have made it quite complicated now to rehome, alot of the cats l was interested in couldnt be rehoned with another cat in the house, and l never saw any kittens, a couple of sites said leave your name if interested in a kitten but no knowing how long that c

I rescued from the Blue Cross, lovely experience. No silly rules about cat flaps and being at home all day. Could have had two but I didn’t.

Came with a ‘voucher’ for neutering but I didn’t bother reclaiming the cash, just sent proof I’d had it done.

Some local rescues wouldn’t let me have a kitten because I didn’t have a cat flap (I don’t want one) or wouldn’t take 2 of them despite me offering a wonderful home. Ridiculous.

I think I will call the closest rescue in the morning and check whether they would be happy to rehome two together when we're out the house all day. In all other ways we're a good home - semi rural, no main road, youngest child is 5 now.

I don't really want to sign up to a waiting list though- I'm a teacher, so I'd really like a good few weeks settling them before I go back to work. I think that if there isn't anything suitable to rehome locally right now, I will take my chances with a private seller.

I'd be very happy with a pair up to about 2 years old. But I have three youngish children (youngest is 5) and the house is quite busy and noisy, and I feel like young kittens are much more likely to get used to that pretty quickly.

Mine was a tiny kitten OP, I just had to wait a week for him to put on a bit of weight as the litter had been abandoned/poorly.

Good Luck, not sure if it is particular to my local Blue Cross but the staff were absolutely first rate - lovely to deal with.

You may have more luck if you apply to adopt a pair of older kittens. Young kittens need regular meals because they're less able to regulate their blood sugar. They can also go downhill quickly if they're ill, e.g. become dehydrated if they have diahrrea, especially if they've knocked over their water bowls, which they're apt to do🙄Unscrupulous breeders have been known to sell sick kittens that rapidly go downhill and die not long after they have been bought.

A rescue will want to be assured that you have a kitten safe room, where they can stay whilst you're out. Kittens that have spent a lot of time in a foster home maybe less likely to injure themselves or be destructive when left, because they will be used to living in a home environment and will (hopefully) have more of an idea how to behave.

From the rescues point of view, they will have had kittens/cats returned to them for destructive behaviour, which could potentially have been prevented if they had been supervised more when they were young, to prevent them getting into bad habits.

You asked about 'non negotiables' - for me I wouldn't want to take them home earlier than 13 weeks, 12 at the minimum. I think those couple of extra weeks with their mum and litter mates are really important.

There are loads of small, informal rescues on Facebook that you could try. Many of them don't have a premises as such, they are just volunteers who rescue cats and kittens and Foster them until they find a decent home for them. Just type cats and kittens into the search bar. Well worth a look.

We adopted 2 from the RSPCA a few weeks ago. They asked for photos of the house and garden, they vaccinated them and we have vouchers for neutering. It was quick and easy but I think we were lucky that they had 2 big litters at the time. They would only rehome in pairs.

This is so true. I found it really hard to get them to accept us despite, idyllic rural location not close to any roads as we have dc.

So did I until I went to the Blue Cross. I was offering a home with ten acres of land and large and small animals at home and the small rescues wouldn’t allow me a cat of any description unless I put a cat flap in.