An RSPCA cattery in Cheshire is appealing for animal-lovers with the required experience to apply to hand-rear kittens due to a shortage of volunteers.
Kittens who are just weeks old and without their mum have to be hand-reared to give them the best chance of survival. It’s an intense job which often involves tube-feeding the kittens every few hours, sometimes as often as every two hours and including throughout the night.
However, despite the intensity of the role, it is incredibly rewarding when the kittens start to get stronger and begin to eat on their own.
The RSPCA’s Stapeley Grange cattery in Nantwich, often has very young kittens brought in by inspectors after being found dumped or orphaned – but there is a shortage of volunteers to hand-rear them.
Joyce Mellor, deputy manager Stapeley Grange, said: “It is a lot of work, but it is also rewarding and that makes it worth it. We would like a list of people who we can call on when we have young kittens brought into us, but our list is small, and we would like to grow it. We are ideally looking for people with past experience of working with cats and we will provide an additional training as and when required.”
Currently the cattery has three young kittens in its care who are being hand-reared by an RSPCA inspector. The three black kittens, aged three weeks old, were found abandoned but are now thriving after regular feeds and cuddles
This time of the year is known as “kitten season”, when RSPCA centres across the country are bursting with cats and kittens.
“We are in the midst of kitten season right now, which is why we urge cat owners to get their pets neutered to avoid unwanted litters,” added Joyce.
Anyone interested in finding out more about hand-rearing kittens should contact [email protected].
