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San Antonio usually sees a high volume of kitten births when the weather warms up. The San Antonio Feral Cat Coalition offers several tips on what to do if residents find kittens.
What do I do first if I find kittens?
Jamie Haskell, volunteer intake coordinator for the San Antonio Feral Cat Coalition's adoption program, said if residents stumble upon a litter of kittens, first check if they are injured or ill before attempting to rescue them. Residents may notice that the kittens are covered in mud, are visibly skinny to where the bones are visible, or are barely able to move.
Check the kitten’s belly for malnourishment. “It should sort of look like a pear, should be nice and fat and round, and the face should be full,” Haskell said. “If the eyes are sunken in, or the cheeks are sunken in, and the belly doesn't look nice and plump, then that's a sign that they've been without mom for too long.”
How do I know for sure if kittens have been abandoned?
Not all kittens are in distress. Some found alone during the day may not be abandoned. Haskell said it could be as simple as the mother left just to find herself some food.
“Mom has to eat,” says Haskell. “A [mother] stray cat is going to go find food where she can, especially if someone's not feeding her, and so she will go out to hunt, and she will have to leave the babies for a while. Who knows how long it'll take her to go find something to eat, because her appetite is huge while she's nursing.”
The kitten’s mother won’t go near her kittens with humans around. Haskell suggested waiting far away from the litter until the evening when the mother will most likely return for her kittens. Don’t move the cats.
“Nine times out of 10, leaving them alone is the right answer, because nine times out of 10, mom is taking care of them. It's very seldom that mom is either neglectful or she has been hit by a car or something like that. Those things do happen, but they are much more rare.”
If someone wants to make sure the kittens have not been abandoned, they should first sprinkle a ring of flour around the nest area to be able to see the mom's footprints coming and going.
“If mom sees you anywhere near, hears you anywhere near, she's not going to come back,” Haskell added.
Kittens should only be moved if they are in a dangerous area such as a busy road. The mother cat may have dropped the kittens in mid-move or the kittens may have wandered off.
“Move them to a slightly safer location, even if that's just further up in a yard, under a bush, something preferably a little covered,” Haskell explained. “[Or] move the kittens into just a cardboard box that's tall enough for the kittens not to be able to climb out, but low enough that moms should be able to hear their cries and jump in and get them.”
Do I feed the kittens while waiting for assistance?
Haskell said after calling for assistance, people should keep the kittens warm.
“Put them on a heating pad. If you don't have an electric one, a good impromptu heating source is just a sock filled with rice heated up in the microwave,” she said. “That little bag will stay warm for at least an hour or so,”
Put the bag or heating pad in a small box as a temporary nesting area.
People can also find a kitten milk replacer (KMR) and bottles at their local grocery store and follow the directions. DO NOT feed kittens cow’s milk.
Haskell also recommended The Kitten Lady on YouTube for tips on how to properly feed kittens.
This older kitten seems feral. Do I pick it up?
Haskell said don’t take in a kitten if it is past the six to eight weeks mark and it is hissing and biting.
“Just wait and feed,” she said. “It's the same with the moms. Just provide them with food so that they keep coming back. And then once they're eight weeks or more, they can be trapped and fixed and returned back to their colony safely, and then they won't reproduce anymore.”
There’s also an important difference between truly feral cats and colony cats. Haskell said feral cats are often hostile to humans and are solitary.
“The vast majority of outdoor cats are community cats,” Haskell explained. "They live amongst the community, and they are like pack animals. They have friends and family that they like to live with, and they form little communities of their own. … There's several established colonies across the city, including at some of our college campuses, that have dedicated volunteers that will go and bring food to the colonies to make sure that they have a food source, and aren't just out there killing all the birds.”
Tenants left a cat behind at my apartment complex. Management has rules. What should I do?
Haskell advised residents to talk to management about getting help to reduce the cat population.
“What we would love to do is get management to contact us, or allow us to reach out to them, to partner with them, to TNR [trap, neuter, release] the stray cat populations at their complexes,” Haskell added. “A lot of times what happens is one or two residents will move out, they'll leave their cats behind, and then those cats breed, and then the next thing you know, that complex has a colony of 30 cats, and it's making it a nightmare for everybody.”
How can I be a foster parent for a cat?
Haskell said the Feral Cat Coalition and other cat organizations desperately need fosters. She said that foster homes provide better support for cats than keeping them in kennels in the city’s shelters, where it is much more stressful.
“The city shelter cannot accept cats and kittens after they run out of space,” Haskell explained. "There are still ways for you to help … even if it's just providing them with a spare room in your home. There are resources through all of the various foster programs to assist in getting these cats vetted and adopted out.”
Follow the San Antonio Feral Cat Coalition on Facebook and Instagram for more kitten advice.
