Project Kitten-Station
Every year we face the same misery, kittens and pregnant cats are often delivered to the Shelter in large numbers! In 2009 alone we cared for over 100 kittens with or without their mothers. The majority of the kittens were taken to the private homes of the Shelter employees as we simply ran out of space to accommodate them! Some of the kittens which stayed at the Shelter fell victim to nasty cat epidemics. These epidemics are especially affecting the young animals as adult cats are almost always immune. Adult cats can however carry the epidemic and pass it on unnoticed. Affected kittens die within only a few hours of falling ill and the close proximity of the cats in the Shelter makes the chance of the kittens contracting the illness extremely high.
By providing a separate area functioning as a dedicated "Kitten Station", only accommodating kittens and their mothers, we hope to keep them distant from the other cats in the Shelter. This will also improve the living conditions for the young cats since they would no longer have to be confined to the small metal cages which serve as our quarantine station. In the "Kitten Station" they will have more room to move around and also access for the carers will be much improved.
Due to a very generous donation from the Sparkasse Spree-Neiße's PS Lottery and cat friends from Hoyerswerda and Cottbus we are delighted that two rooms have been sanitised and rebuilt. The donations were also enough to cover the purchase of the metal dividers in the first room. Now six spacious areas are ready to accommodate whole cat families and four smaller areas will host single kittens. To make the kittens and their mothers comfortable items such as scratching posts, soft beds, blankets and toys have kindly been donated by an animal friend from Frankfurt am Main.
Seven further areas are planned to be made available in the second room of the "Kitten Station".
Just how urgent the "Kitten Station" is was realised within only a few weeks as we found ourselves caring for 8 mothers and their 38 kittens. Two mothers had to be cared for by our Veterinarian as the Shelter ran out of space to accommodate all the cat families at once.
This means that the finalisation of the second room is more urgent than ever and we have to turn to you for help!
In order to finalise the additional rooms we need financial support to purchase the metal dividers. Every financial donation, no matter how large or small, helps us to prepare for the next rush of cat families that could be delivered to our care.
Of course not only financial donations help us and we are more than grateful to receive donations of the following foods and items:
- Food for kittens and young cats (wet as well as dry food)
- Cat toilets with flat entry
- Flat food bowels made of plastic
- Special bottles for feeding small kittens (from pet shops)
- 2 electric water kettles with automatic switch off function (to make hot water for the special milk formula for the kittens and to boil water for water bottles)
- Special "infrared lamps" for raising small kittens
- Hot Water Bottles / Heating Blankets
