First-time Baby Bottle Brigade volunteers learn how to properly care for a newborn kitten. Neonate kittens require 24-hour care. (Photo courtesy of LBACS).
As the weather around Southern California begins to dry out and warm up, animal care agencies and rescues from across Southern California are preparing for an onslaught of newborn kittens arriving on their doorsteps.
Kitten season, as it is known to those who work in animal husbandry, is a monthly timetable that usually begins in the spring when endless new litters of baby cats are born and, inevitably, brought to local shelter
And while most animal lovers may rejoice at the thought of thousands of newborn kittens frolicking in their yards – the reality of kitten season is often much darker.
“Kittens can actually start producing (more) kittens at six months old – biologically at four, but we often see it start around six, and they can have three litters a year ,” Long Beach Animal Care Services bureau manager Melanie Wagner said. “Very quickly, kittens are made very quickly.”
“In good weather, wildlife increases. It’s the same thing for cats,” said Santa Ana-based rescue Cali’s Misfits CEO and co-founder Carla Etzold. “Cats that are not groomed on the street or not groomed and owned, but on the street, there’s just more and more. these. this is just a massive influx of minor kittens.”
While most kittens are likely to survive when they are in their mother’s constant care, it’s a different story for the thousands who end up orphaned each year.
Newborn kittens need feeding every two to four hours to survive — overnight care that most shelters are incapable of offering.
“We end up with a lot of motherless neonates in our care,” Wagner said. “Why is it so difficult in shelters, generally, they have to be fed every two to four hours. We can’t leave them alone at night or they will starve.”
Compounding the situation: The growing need for bottle feeding by “pet parents.”
Kevin McManus, spokesman for the Pasadena Humane, said kitten season is always “all hands on deck.” In addition to the staff’s efforts, the Pasadena agency has approximately 70 kittens currently in foster homes.
Ana Bustilloz, spokeswoman for spcaLA, said the spcaLA South Bay Pet Adoption Center in Hawthorne has placed 25 kittens with foster volunteers, even though kitten season is not yet in full swing, in addition to the kittens on site.
Fosters can be hard to find “because people like to sleep,” McManus said.
It’s not as harsh as it sounds, he added. The all-night work is not tiring, he said, like taking care of a newborn human. After all, three-week-old kittens “do nothing but eat and sleep and poop,” she said.
However, foster homes can be difficult to find. The alternative, sadly, can be miserable. In Long Beach, for example, about 400 newborn kittens are euthanized each kitten season, says Wagner of LBACS, simply because there aren’t enough resources available to care for them — and letting them know that starving overnight is a less humane option.
Often times, timing can be the biggest challenge — like when litters of newborns are brought to the shelter at the end of the day, when it’s ultimately harder to find fosters who can provide full-time care for the kittens. , or if they were brought before a weekend.
“Where we run into those issues is that gap — the one- to three-day gap,” Wagner said, “where we only have to buy kittens for a few hours.”
And even though the Long Beach shelter is currently working with various rescues — including the Little Lion Foundation — to temporarily foster and care for hundreds of their newborn kittens, there still aren’t enough resources available to care for every one. a kitten
“The (Little Lion Foundation) takes 500 kittens from us and puts them in their rescue — that means they’re also responsible for adopting those kittens,” Wagner said. “So they can’t accommodate the gap between kittens that we have during the kitten season — it’s too much pressure on the rescue.”
But Wagner and LBACS have launched a new program — a first of its kind for the city — that aims to completely close that gap and prevent any kittens from being euthanized due to a lack of resources.
Dubbed the Bottle Baby Brigade, the program is a new partnership between LBACS and the Little Lion Foundation that will use a team of emergency fosters to provide temporary care for kittens who cannot be taken elsewhere.
“The idea is that at night or after hours, our officers will call Little Lion directly, (who will) reach out to their emergency foster team,” Wagner said, “who will hold those kittens for us to in one. to three days.”
That new system, Wagner said, will free up time for LBACS’ foster coordinators to find those kittens more long-term fosters until they are old enough to be adopted into a permanent home.
“I like to call our Bottle Baby Brigade a ‘kitten cushion,'” says Wagner, “It’s like a pillow that they rest on for a minute before they go somewhere else.”
The program is grant-funded by donations from two other animal rescue organizations, Best Friend Animal Society and Kitten Lady, according to Wagner.
Right now, emergency foster teams are only available through Little Lion while the Baby Bottle Brigade program has been scaled back, Wagner said.
“I think if it works and we see a positive impact,” Wagner said, “in the coming years, we can look at expanding it into a bigger, more comprehensive program in other rescues.”
And even though the term “kitten season” refers to a set time that saves sightings and an influx of newborns — Wagner says the season is essentially year-round in California, and they could always use some extra help from in the community.
“We’re on a bit of a Christmas break,” Wagner said. “In the past, we’d see it slow down in September or October – now, we’re seeing it slow down later in the year.” All told, LBACS typically takes in about 1,200 to 1,400 kittens per season.
The Bottle Baby Brigade, meanwhile, is a short-term development opportunity that typically lasts no more than three days. Animal rescue agencies, Wagner said, would also benefit from more long-term fosters.
“Enrichment in general is a huge impact for us,” Wagner said, “especially during these busy months – it makes kennel space available to help more kittens come in.”
Another important part of the kitten season issue – one that is often overlooked by many people – is making sure that pets and street cats are well.
“The more cats we fixed, the fewer cats joined – and that’s how we solved this problem.”
Many shelters offer assistance programs to help pay for spaying and neutering. LBACS, for example, offers up to five $100 vouchers.
“The community can help us, because we can’t go out and fix every cat,” Wagner said. “To me, that’s the biggest thing we can do as a community — is to groom every cat in the community.”
Also, many shelters are constantly in need of a variety of supplies – especially for newborn cats that require bottle feeding – from milk change and heading pads to blankets and food.
“If someone really wants to make an impact for baby bottles,” Wagner said, “they can donate those supplies to us, so they can go to the fosters we’re helping.”
So far, the most attractive for shelters with the arrival of spring: Feed the babies.
McManus of Pasadena Humane took in three fur babies herself for round-the-clock feeding. He set an alarm for every three hours, fed each one, put them in the litter box and that was it. Go back to bed.
“For me it’s very rewarding to see them gain weight and be a little more active,” McManus said.
By the end of the foster stint, McManus said, the kittens bonded with her and began chasing her around.
“Their little personalities are starting to come out,” he said. “But, of course, once they’re adopted, you breathe a sigh of relief.”
More information about LBACS fostering, spay and neuter vouchers, and required donations is available on their website, longbeach.gov/acs. To volunteer to be a foster in the Pasadena area, visit pasadenahumane.org/volunteer. In the Hawthorne area, people interested in fostering can begin the process to become a volunteer at spcaLA.com/foster.
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Staff writers Destiny Torres, Tyler Evains and Lisa Jacobs contributed to this report.
