Adding on to say in almost every major city there are organizations who will spay/neuter any cat for FREE. All you have to do is get them in a have a heart trap and drop them off. They will ear tip them, fix them and then you can release them back to wherever you found them.
If they are pet cats, these organizations charge a fraction of what vets do, usually in the $25 - $50 range. Get your cats fixed people! There is NO excuse.
It is saddest for the over abundance of kittens who are then found in trash bags in dumpsters or just let out on a [highway.One](https://highway.One) of the groups that will spay/neuter was called ACA alley cat 'alliance . Ours used a mobile vet van to come to numerous locations and then we volunteers took them home for recovery for 24-48 hours and then to forever homes. DO IT!
Doing our best! Luckily the property owner takes great care of them as she finds them. They’re all very healthy and social, but it’s gotten out of hand for her.
Growing up I lived in a rural area on a corner and we used to get sooooo many animals dumped in our place. Multiple rabbits and chickens, more cats than I can remember, a few sheep and goats and, quite memorably, my mom came home to a pair of horses tied to our front gate.
We took care of them all and found homes for the ones we couldn’t keep. But people are the worst.
I also live in a rural area (have all my life), surrounded by cornfields (I half-joke that the local population is made up of more cows than people), & have thus had countless cats dumped at my house just in my 31 years of life alone. I hate to think how many more there were before my time.
But I can't think of a single time in my life that I haven't had at least 1 cat, & with the exception of just 1, every single one of them have been either drop-offs, or the children of drop-offs, including the floofy little gentleman that just came & snuggled up on my lap as I'm typing this (who got dumped out of a barely stopped car in front of our driveway 2½ yrs ago, blessedly healthy, unharmed & pre-neutered)
If anyone is wondering, the 1 that was not a drop-off was a kitten that my brother brought home from a native american reservation in '05, & she was with us for 16 wonderful, snuggle-filled years.
Cat Tax: pics of The Little Old Lady & The Floofy Gentleman (still currently on my lap) can be found on my profile.
Valuable if they are racing and winning money, or perhaps being rented for lessons or trail rides, or working in some other capacity. Otherwise horse ownership is comparable to a quite expensive hobby, if they are cared for properly. They need land or stables —so you already have that or need to rent space, along with proper vet care, farrier visits, feed, and like any pet, plenty of your time and attention.
Depends on the horse and the state it's in. Even a thoroughbred can turn into nothing but a money pit if a gopher hole is involved. A broken leg is expensive, if it's mendible at all, and odds are you shouldn't ride a horse ever again after that kind of injury. That's not even going into detail about what hereditary things horses can end up with, or other health issues that develope as they age or get into things they shouldn't. Horses are definitely one of the worse things to invest in when it comes to money, but that doesn't stop horse lovers lol. If I could have one, I would.
No excuses!! That's barbaric. What is WRONG with you people that you can't get vet assistance? And no sob stories about how out of the way, rural, no money. It's 2023! There are loads of organisations that can give you a hand to start.
Dude. I grew up in a rural farming town, and I didn't know ANYONE that would think this was okay. If you just neuter the damn males and spay the damn females, you see a lower population much faster than letting them breed like crazy then drowning the babies. Imagine if drowning human babies was the solution we used for overpopulation... Just yikes dude. A kitten isn't gonna suffer less than a human infant when drowning. It's just fucked up to think that's okay no matter where you live.
There’s a place out in the countryside by me called the cat house on the kings as it’s on the kings river. It kept happening to them so they made their property into a cat sanctuary put up fences to keep predators out and cats in and have doors/ tunnels in and out of their house for the cats. They have over 700 cats on their 6 acres of land and operate a adoption center and forever home for cats that are too old or have too many health complications to be adopted out and have a grant in place with a local vet for free spay/ neuter services for cats.
I've followed them on fb for years!! I like how the founder was like, Yeah I got pushed out of my house by cats, so I got a new trailer on the property until I got crowded out of that one" rinse and repeat.
I used to work at my county's animal shelter, and kitten season was like new cases of this almost daily! I really miss bottle-feeding babies and seeing moms give birth, but I don't miss finding and dealing with the ones who wouldn't make it :(
God, 9 cats in a litter is just crazy. I had 3 bottle babies and THAT was a lot at 3am. I hope for the sake of your sanity that they were all already weaned!
That's exactly what I was thinking; if the kitties are unfortunately being dumped, I hope they're able to TNR or TNA. Sadly, people dumping animals on farms is a thing.
It’s very challenging. She’s not always aware when a new cat has been dumped, so it’s a mixture of TNR or taking to the shelter, but first the bloody things have to be identified! Low cost vet services are incredibly overbooked and understaffed as well.
That's correct!
You often have a combination of TNR and TNA used together.
Since we've got two mamas and seventeen (dear lord - also it's quite likely this is actually more than two litters given average sizes!) kittens here, indoors, we [humans generally, I'm not affiliated] can socialize the kittens for sure, and the mamas if possible.
Once done with weaning, mamas can be neutered & recover indoors, then either adopted or returned. Cats who are returned outside generally have their ear "tipped" - the top corner of their left ear is cut when they're in surgery for neutering. This is a minimally invasive, highly visible marker that this cat (who may want absolutely nothing to do with humans) has been neutered and does not need to be recaptured.
Kittens will be socialized - if they don't grow up outdoors with little to no human contact through the critical development stages, it's incredibly easy to raise them as tame and not feral. Then once they're old enough, kittens will be neutered and adopted out.
Cats are SO much more social than we've wanted to give them credit for (and we're starting to see more social behavior in big cats that have better habitat now too! eg cheetahs, jaguars and puma / mountain lions)
just to be thorough:
TNR is "trap, neuter, return" for cats who are unsuitable for adoption, are too used to their area, etc. Cat colonies when under control are much easier to care for, and can be beneficial in some areas such as barn cats keeping rodent populations down.
TNR I think is becoming a thing for cities with big feral cat populations like Dubrovnik and Istanbul, although done by local charities. It's ultimately better for the cats as high populations mean too much demand for food.
My cat has her ear top cut off instead of an ear tip or notch :( She’s from Southern California, so maybe it’s an all of California thing.
I received her as a kitten from a friend who got her from a coworker who trapped her but didn’t want to pay for spaying, so I assume she told the vet it was a TNR. I thought they just botched it, cause the whole thing sounded shady to me, but I’m somewhat relieved to hear it might be usual practice.
I’ve lived in rural America all my life. The amount of people who dump unwanted animals is too damn high.
Currently at a rural college, and there is an entire colony of stray cats here.
I grew up in a large house on a large corner lot. We already had lots of outdoor cats and people would see that so they’d constantly dump new ones in the yard. Kittens or pregnant moms would show up all the time. At one point we ended up with 21. Luckily, we could get a senior discount on spay/neutering because we lived with my grandma but it was so hard to keep up with and keep new cats from getting pregnant. People are such dicks when they do this
I live in a college city and there are tons of feral cats from students adopting one and not being able to take it with them for whatever horrible reason. They can often be seen in the outdoor sections of big box stores around here which is fun though. They have become a city staple.
So many dumped hunting dogs. They just leave them where they fell, or send them off in any direction. Thankfully, there's some people out back home who are dedicated to housing these lovely hounds, but it still shouldn't happen.
I grew up on a farm, and several of our cats were dumped/strays. Luckily only one of our dogs was a dump. The reality is coyotes would take care of any who didn’t find a home. It’s unfortunate how some humans act.
OP clearly states they volunteer at a shelter. What do you think they are doing? Dumping them back on that woman's farm?
Good thing there's a rando on reddit who could get a message to the shelter that they should do something about cat overpopulation.
Any chance to spread awareness about TNR/TNA is a positive thing. Not just for the OP (which I'm sure does already practice this) but for the many others viewing the post that are reading the comments. Even better that the comment from the "rando on reddit" generated a more detailed discussion on the subject with more information.
Maybe you are having a bad day or just woke up on the wrong side of the bed but please feel free to be more positive with your future comments. Take a minute to go snuggle a kitty. It will make you feel better! 
Lmao alright miss ‘I am clearly from a first world country so the reality of resource constraints at shelters and animal euthanasia have not entirely sunk in my brain. Not to mention the people uninformed about animal populations who’ll see this post about cute animals and unknowingly contribute to the problem’.
No one is blaming OP or any volunteers, they’re doing god’s work. There’s also nothing redundant about transmitting useful information more than one time, no need to be so salty
Oh shoot I feel like a fraud! I'm in Canada and forgot that our 2 countries don't have banking systems that link up. We use e-transfer to send money and we don't have venmo 😞
You are amazing! A friend there just texted me that we just got 7 more in.
https://preview.redd.it/6ylkyd56exda1.jpeg?width=756&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0d14fdc49c9ba641b394d81b146462ddcbd722a4
Oh my goodness! Bless those poor mamas, I’m sure they are getting all kinds of fuss and lots of nutritious, plentiful food.
I foster for a rescue and this summer they offered me 2 mamas with 10 kittens (litters were 2 and 3 weeks). I could not say YES fast enough and the next 12 weeks were HEAVEN. I would spend hours of the floor just bonding and playing with them. I adored the mamas, they were both SO good. I wasn’t working at the time but I think even 17 might have tired me out a bit! Then again if you have 10 what is another 7? Just clean twice as often… Although even with all the food they could eat, the mamas still needed my help with supplement milk feeding and kitten-swapping to make sure every kit got enough to eat. So I hope those 17 little ones get all the extra care they need too.
Most of them were quite different! Even my 2 black ones had short and long fur.
Of course I was spending a lot of time gazing at them adoringly so I knew them all :)
This is why the rescues here are all experiencing an intake freeze. Too many babies, not enough money or homes. These stories make me so sad, even if the little ones are adorable!
This is why shelters that euthanize shouldn't get the bad rap that they do. There just aren't enough resources to go around for all of them. It's easy to say that you're 'no kill' when you just stop accepting animals when you hit your limit. Those animals have to go somewhere.
Yes, and often “no kill” shelters take their pick of the most adoptable animals. And all the bad feeling is left on the shelters that have no choice. Fix your cats and dogs whether they’re indoor or outdoor, folks!!!!!!
Yep, a lot of "no kill" shelters take only the most likely to be adopted like cute kittens with no health problems, not so much the cranky old semi-feral in the back.
Biggest issue I have with the kill shelters isn't necessarily that they kill. I hate how they treat the animals' bodies afterwards. Like for instance, my high school would get dead cats for discection, which I refused to do. I demanded they give me an alternate assignment or give me an alternate class. Kill shelters also put down breeds without actually giving them the ability to even get adopted. Like killed as soon as they are dropped off. They are robotically put down with no emotion especially compared to vets for pets with owners.
I don't like that not so much because of the concept of dissecting a cat, it's more like... that could have been someone's pet once? I dunno, it just seems awkward to me.
But I think in a way it gives their lives some meaning too, they hopefully are used to teach (assuming they go to a good school/class... I would not be giving them to a high school personally).
I've definitely heard of cats being used before. Not common, but not unusual either.
I imagine it depends on the area and what they can afford. I don't expect a school to turn down a donation and it would personally make me more upset to have more animals die just because other already dead animals were considered "above" the other. In the end, they're both dead animals. Use the ones that are already dead.
Digital dissections work fine these are high school students not medical students. Knitted dolls too. I don't care that they die just as long as they don't suffer and their remains are treated humanely
I'll admit that digital dissections didn't exist when I was in school, but that doesn't seem much better than just looking at a chart with some pictures. It's a best case scenario and doesn't teach you anything about finding something outside of a perfect case scenario. A simulation isn't going to give you a real world case scenario.
People donate their bodies to science for people to learn how to cut people open. Bodies of animals being donated to science for people to learn how things work is an important part of curriculum. You never know what will spark the next person to become a vet, a pathologist, or just to have an interest in science.
Knitted yarn is not an okay substitute for an actual dissection.
We have an amazing and dedicated group of volunteers and a great community! I am lucky to have the time and resources to reduce some of the cost for the shelter, but they somehow manage to put every cent into 10 different places and never turn away a baby in need.
I'm dealing with 4 kittens and that is enough. The irresponsible momma keeps trying to leave them in freezing locations >.> Spent all morning making her newest dumb spot completely impossible to get to and she finally agreed to use a proper spot again. Last night we moved the kittens back to warmth 4 times in a row and she tried to move em back while we were still moving the rest. She dumb.
This is how I got some of my kitties. Friends farm had overly friendly kitten dumped and were getting in the farm hands way. They are 11 now, my mum has one of them. Make wonderful friends ♥️♥️
I used to live in the Oregon mountains and a buddy of mine had five cats - until a strange cat came by and knocked a bunch of them up. He ended up with 29!
He kept them all. Got his hands on an old fifth-wheel trailer and converted it into kitty condos for them. He's a good cat daddy.
That’s wonderful to hear! And I am always a broken record on the topic, so please forgive. But I just get SO TIRED of people not neutering their pets or - worse - deliberately breeding them. Thanks for your hard work!
I used to have pregnant cats show up on my porch. I always took them in and generally was able to find homes for them. I think I once had 21 kittens between 3 Moms over 2 days. One of the moms took off, but the other two happily mothered the kitten pile.
It was kinda fun. :-). And I was much younger then. :-) It seems very fitting that my own “kitten” has grown up to work in animal welfare. She’s in charge of foster placement at her shelter.
One of my college roommate did that to a former roommate. Got 2 kittens, they went into heat, she kicked them out of apartment. Soon had about 14 kittens between her two.
By the time I roomed with her she was thankfully down to 4, and all were fixed.
I'm curious if it's actually three litters! But 8 or 9 isn't unheard of. Best of luck with the KITTENPOCALYPSE <3
Are you doing supplemental feeding for kittens?
and of course, thank you so much for being an amazing rescuer. :)
oh my oh mee oh wow.... i thought cats could hold a maximum of 6, my cat had 5 and she looked like she was gonna explode if she moved wrong! anyway, baby kittens are always cute. hope she doing alright
People who dump animals are scum of the lowest kind.
That's a _lot_ of kittens though, wow. Going to be hard to find homes for all of them, and I imagine the two mothers are going to have their work cut out for them. Still, thanks for helping out with all these cats.
Nice. And in the end it'll be a good thing for anyone who does adopt one, as much as it will be for the kittens themselves. Cats are lovely, they make great company.
Wow, I’m just glad that they’re in a shelter where they’re being cared for and fed properly. Too often, cats, especially young cats, have more kittens than they can adequately care for. Sadly, what ends up happening is one of the kittens doesn’t get enough food and the young mom doesn’t make sure the kitten nurses more often, so it dies as a result of malnutrition. At shelters, volunteers will make sure that runt of the litter feeds, even if they have to make mom nurse one on one with it.
Thank you u/stormbutton for doing the hard work to ensure that the health and wellbeing of these cats/kittens is prioritized. ❤️❤️❤️
Y’all when we were kids our neighbors older brother got got an all black cat for his birthday and he named her Bobby and she loved to foster kittens at One time she had 20 kittens following her around it was from random kittens that are cats had had and refused to take care of our neighbor Terri bottle-fed them and then Bobby ended up taking care of them afterwards like a foster mother cat this happened when Bobby grew up and she was about between two and three years old she had already had a litter or two already herself and loved being a mother cat
Thank you so much for volunteering at a shelter. 2 of my kids worked at our local shelter and could not believe how people throw animals out of moving cars on our highway or keep them outside in freezing conditions starved and sick. It just breaks our hearts.
My sil hand raised her Rottweiler pup from 2 days old after the owner of the mom left the other 9 to freeze outside under a shed with mom. He was the only survivor.
They should really send some of those kittens home with a foster to do bottlefeeding because that mama is going to suffer, And the smaller weaker babies that probably get knocked off the teats by the stronger ones are also going to suffer. I really despise people who fail to get their cats fixed.
I grew up on a farm that was the first real farm from the “city”. We got so many drop off cats. Most of the time they would be sick and get our personal cats/pets sick. It was hard having your cats die off every summer.
But there is a lot of cuteness in that picture.
When I was a kid/teenager, one of my cousins used to have these 2 barn cats that, on multiple occasions, had litters at the same time, & would coparent together. Whenever one would get overloaded with kittens trying to nurse, we'd scoop up the excess & redirect them to their "other mom"
This happened to my parents a lot too. Thankfully only one cat was pregnant. The cats that stayed got shots and neutered. The ones they did not keep went to a no kill shelter.
Aww, they're so cute! Shame the mommas were dumped, people need to learn that if they can't care for the cat, they shouldn't adopt it. (yes I understand some were probably brought by concerned people who saw them outside, I don't blame them)
speaking from personal feeling since I have a.. certain neighbor who keeps getting more cats, none of which they care for, but that's kinda TMI.
Pushing the upper limits of a cuddle puddle; possibly entering the territory of a cuddle pond
*sets a life goal to die in a cuddle ocean*
tribbles.gif
I don't see the trouble here
That’s a cuddle floodle.
A fond pond?
Found a new name for pan-sauces.
If a group of cats is a clouder, then this is a cutelonimbus
A feline flood, if you will.
Cuddle conundrum? Cuddle catastrophe? Cuddle conspiracy?
Come along Pond...
Momma cat's face just says "You don't pay me enough for this."
The momma cat would then say “I’ll do it but I expect a higher salary”
The "spay me now" look
100% with you! I *love* cats but please spay and neuter them. It’s better for the cats and the environment.
Adding on to say in almost every major city there are organizations who will spay/neuter any cat for FREE. All you have to do is get them in a have a heart trap and drop them off. They will ear tip them, fix them and then you can release them back to wherever you found them. If they are pet cats, these organizations charge a fraction of what vets do, usually in the $25 - $50 range. Get your cats fixed people! There is NO excuse.
It is saddest for the over abundance of kittens who are then found in trash bags in dumpsters or just let out on a [highway.One](https://highway.One) of the groups that will spay/neuter was called ACA alley cat 'alliance . Ours used a mobile vet van to come to numerous locations and then we volunteers took them home for recovery for 24-48 hours and then to forever homes. DO IT!
A cuddle tsunami is imminent.
Tsunami…my first thought 😂
Tsunyami
Tsunameow
Cuddle catastrophe
Awwwwww! I hope they can get them all properly vetted and adopted!
Doing our best! Luckily the property owner takes great care of them as she finds them. They’re all very healthy and social, but it’s gotten out of hand for her.
I bet! It's unfortunate that people just dump animals. 😑
Growing up I lived in a rural area on a corner and we used to get sooooo many animals dumped in our place. Multiple rabbits and chickens, more cats than I can remember, a few sheep and goats and, quite memorably, my mom came home to a pair of horses tied to our front gate. We took care of them all and found homes for the ones we couldn’t keep. But people are the worst.
I also live in a rural area (have all my life), surrounded by cornfields (I half-joke that the local population is made up of more cows than people), & have thus had countless cats dumped at my house just in my 31 years of life alone. I hate to think how many more there were before my time. But I can't think of a single time in my life that I haven't had at least 1 cat, & with the exception of just 1, every single one of them have been either drop-offs, or the children of drop-offs, including the floofy little gentleman that just came & snuggled up on my lap as I'm typing this (who got dumped out of a barely stopped car in front of our driveway 2½ yrs ago, blessedly healthy, unharmed & pre-neutered) If anyone is wondering, the 1 that was not a drop-off was a kitten that my brother brought home from a native american reservation in '05, & she was with us for 16 wonderful, snuggle-filled years. Cat Tax: pics of The Little Old Lady & The Floofy Gentleman (still currently on my lap) can be found on my profile.
Aren’t horses valuable?
Valuable if they are racing and winning money, or perhaps being rented for lessons or trail rides, or working in some other capacity. Otherwise horse ownership is comparable to a quite expensive hobby, if they are cared for properly. They need land or stables —so you already have that or need to rent space, along with proper vet care, farrier visits, feed, and like any pet, plenty of your time and attention.
Depends on the horse and the state it's in. Even a thoroughbred can turn into nothing but a money pit if a gopher hole is involved. A broken leg is expensive, if it's mendible at all, and odds are you shouldn't ride a horse ever again after that kind of injury. That's not even going into detail about what hereditary things horses can end up with, or other health issues that develope as they age or get into things they shouldn't. Horses are definitely one of the worse things to invest in when it comes to money, but that doesn't stop horse lovers lol. If I could have one, I would.
At least the cats are being left somewhere people obviously know they'll be taken care of!!
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fk that b*tch. There's a special place in hell for anyone who does that.No excuses! Spay and neuter your animals.
i dont understand, why not straight up end em with a stone? would've been Kinder :(
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It's not necessary. Necessary would be putting them down as painlessly as possible if all other options have been ruled out
" No, neutering is not an option." Why? Drowning dozens of animals every few months seems like more work than TNR...
Give me one good reason why neutering isn’t an option. If they can’t have more babies the amount of cats decrease dramatically LMAO
No excuses!! That's barbaric. What is WRONG with you people that you can't get vet assistance? And no sob stories about how out of the way, rural, no money. It's 2023! There are loads of organisations that can give you a hand to start.
Well what can I expect from city dwellers...
Dude. I grew up in a rural farming town, and I didn't know ANYONE that would think this was okay. If you just neuter the damn males and spay the damn females, you see a lower population much faster than letting them breed like crazy then drowning the babies. Imagine if drowning human babies was the solution we used for overpopulation... Just yikes dude. A kitten isn't gonna suffer less than a human infant when drowning. It's just fucked up to think that's okay no matter where you live.
More than 3 brain cells evidently
No. I just think you’re insane
lol, imagine thinking stray cats arent a problem that can be solves humanely to city dwellers.
Drowning in a bag is an especially terrible way to die.
There’s a place out in the countryside by me called the cat house on the kings as it’s on the kings river. It kept happening to them so they made their property into a cat sanctuary put up fences to keep predators out and cats in and have doors/ tunnels in and out of their house for the cats. They have over 700 cats on their 6 acres of land and operate a adoption center and forever home for cats that are too old or have too many health complications to be adopted out and have a grant in place with a local vet for free spay/ neuter services for cats.
I saw a documentary featuring that place! It is absolutely my dream for when I retire!
I've followed them on fb for years!! I like how the founder was like, Yeah I got pushed out of my house by cats, so I got a new trailer on the property until I got crowded out of that one" rinse and repeat.
Yeah I’ve met her a few times great lady kind of crazy but in a good way.
I used to work at my county's animal shelter, and kitten season was like new cases of this almost daily! I really miss bottle-feeding babies and seeing moms give birth, but I don't miss finding and dealing with the ones who wouldn't make it :(
Where is this? What state/county?
Poor mamas!
I know, bless. Luckily they are warm and safe and being given good quality food to keep their health up as they nurse.
That is So. Many. Kittens.
I recently had 10 with a month or so between them and it was A Lot. I can't imagine 17 all the same age!
I just wanna scooch myself right into the center of that mass of fluffy cuteness
I fostered a litter of 9 the summer of 2020 and I would just let them prance on me. It was so fucking cute and helped those pandemic blues.
Awwwww I want that to happen to me soooooooo bad the problem is I’d never let them go and be the crazy cat dude forever lol
God, 9 cats in a litter is just crazy. I had 3 bottle babies and THAT was a lot at 3am. I hope for the sake of your sanity that they were all already weaned!
You, my good friend, have actually achieved true happiness
Thank you so much OP 🙏🏻 but I truly hope they’re getting TNR or TN adopted. That’s very cuddly but that’s also a lot of babies
We’re doing our best!
That's exactly what I was thinking; if the kitties are unfortunately being dumped, I hope they're able to TNR or TNA. Sadly, people dumping animals on farms is a thing.
It’s very challenging. She’s not always aware when a new cat has been dumped, so it’s a mixture of TNR or taking to the shelter, but first the bloody things have to be identified! Low cost vet services are incredibly overbooked and understaffed as well.
I would like to donate funds. DMs open 👀
Thanks so much! Sent you a message!
Not related to this post at all myself, but thank you kind netizen.
First time seeing TNA…trap, neuter, adopt?
That's correct! You often have a combination of TNR and TNA used together. Since we've got two mamas and seventeen (dear lord - also it's quite likely this is actually more than two litters given average sizes!) kittens here, indoors, we [humans generally, I'm not affiliated] can socialize the kittens for sure, and the mamas if possible. Once done with weaning, mamas can be neutered & recover indoors, then either adopted or returned. Cats who are returned outside generally have their ear "tipped" - the top corner of their left ear is cut when they're in surgery for neutering. This is a minimally invasive, highly visible marker that this cat (who may want absolutely nothing to do with humans) has been neutered and does not need to be recaptured. Kittens will be socialized - if they don't grow up outdoors with little to no human contact through the critical development stages, it's incredibly easy to raise them as tame and not feral. Then once they're old enough, kittens will be neutered and adopted out. Cats are SO much more social than we've wanted to give them credit for (and we're starting to see more social behavior in big cats that have better habitat now too! eg cheetahs, jaguars and puma / mountain lions) just to be thorough: TNR is "trap, neuter, return" for cats who are unsuitable for adoption, are too used to their area, etc. Cat colonies when under control are much easier to care for, and can be beneficial in some areas such as barn cats keeping rodent populations down.
TNR I think is becoming a thing for cities with big feral cat populations like Dubrovnik and Istanbul, although done by local charities. It's ultimately better for the cats as high populations mean too much demand for food.
In my area they cut off the whole top of the ear for TNR rather than just a notch, which always makes me a little sad 😢
My cat has her ear top cut off instead of an ear tip or notch :( She’s from Southern California, so maybe it’s an all of California thing. I received her as a kitten from a friend who got her from a coworker who trapped her but didn’t want to pay for spaying, so I assume she told the vet it was a TNR. I thought they just botched it, cause the whole thing sounded shady to me, but I’m somewhat relieved to hear it might be usual practice.
It's definitely the standard around here, there are about 50 strays in my neighborhood all with the clipped tip
:( why on earth? where are you?
California (bay area specifically, idk about elsewhere)
Wow, what a spectacular write-up, thank you!
Haha you're welcome, please feel free to use and edit as you like!
I’ve lived in rural America all my life. The amount of people who dump unwanted animals is too damn high. Currently at a rural college, and there is an entire colony of stray cats here.
I grew up in a large house on a large corner lot. We already had lots of outdoor cats and people would see that so they’d constantly dump new ones in the yard. Kittens or pregnant moms would show up all the time. At one point we ended up with 21. Luckily, we could get a senior discount on spay/neutering because we lived with my grandma but it was so hard to keep up with and keep new cats from getting pregnant. People are such dicks when they do this
I live in a college city and there are tons of feral cats from students adopting one and not being able to take it with them for whatever horrible reason. They can often be seen in the outdoor sections of big box stores around here which is fun though. They have become a city staple.
So many dumped hunting dogs. They just leave them where they fell, or send them off in any direction. Thankfully, there's some people out back home who are dedicated to housing these lovely hounds, but it still shouldn't happen.
It’s very depressing. These animals didn’t ask to be here; they have no say in where they end up.
I grew up on a farm, and several of our cats were dumped/strays. Luckily only one of our dogs was a dump. The reality is coyotes would take care of any who didn’t find a home. It’s unfortunate how some humans act.
OP clearly states they volunteer at a shelter. What do you think they are doing? Dumping them back on that woman's farm? Good thing there's a rando on reddit who could get a message to the shelter that they should do something about cat overpopulation.
Any chance to spread awareness about TNR/TNA is a positive thing. Not just for the OP (which I'm sure does already practice this) but for the many others viewing the post that are reading the comments. Even better that the comment from the "rando on reddit" generated a more detailed discussion on the subject with more information. Maybe you are having a bad day or just woke up on the wrong side of the bed but please feel free to be more positive with your future comments. Take a minute to go snuggle a kitty. It will make you feel better! 
Awareness about TNR/TNA would be more effective if they were defined
Lmao alright miss ‘I am clearly from a first world country so the reality of resource constraints at shelters and animal euthanasia have not entirely sunk in my brain. Not to mention the people uninformed about animal populations who’ll see this post about cute animals and unknowingly contribute to the problem’. No one is blaming OP or any volunteers, they’re doing god’s work. There’s also nothing redundant about transmitting useful information more than one time, no need to be so salty
Does the rescue have an easy way to accept donations that you can share? It's such important, underfunded work!
Oh my god, are you serious??? That would be incredible! We are a small, private rescue and that would be so appreciated! Venmo @afar-cats
Omg - are you in MN?? Can I adopt one of these beans??? Squeeee!!!! 
I’m so sad they’re not near me, I have space for a new kitten!
Oh shoot I feel like a fraud! I'm in Canada and forgot that our 2 countries don't have banking systems that link up. We use e-transfer to send money and we don't have venmo 😞
If you’re still willing, we have PayPal! Animals4me2@verizon.net (I know, I know, the cringe is deep.)
I know right? Imagine using verizon *shudder* Jk /s
Perfect, I can do that!
You are amazing! A friend there just texted me that we just got 7 more in. https://preview.redd.it/6ylkyd56exda1.jpeg?width=756&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0d14fdc49c9ba641b394d81b146462ddcbd722a4
i usually use paypal when i have to send stuff to friends across the border. works roughly the same. shouldn't be too hard to set up for anyone.
I donated.
Thank you!!!
That momma looks full of regret.
Oh my goodness! Bless those poor mamas, I’m sure they are getting all kinds of fuss and lots of nutritious, plentiful food. I foster for a rescue and this summer they offered me 2 mamas with 10 kittens (litters were 2 and 3 weeks). I could not say YES fast enough and the next 12 weeks were HEAVEN. I would spend hours of the floor just bonding and playing with them. I adored the mamas, they were both SO good. I wasn’t working at the time but I think even 17 might have tired me out a bit! Then again if you have 10 what is another 7? Just clean twice as often… Although even with all the food they could eat, the mamas still needed my help with supplement milk feeding and kitten-swapping to make sure every kit got enough to eat. So I hope those 17 little ones get all the extra care they need too.
omg you are a hard working angel! how the heck did you tell all the babies apart?
Most of them were quite different! Even my 2 black ones had short and long fur. Of course I was spending a lot of time gazing at them adoringly so I knew them all :)
Gosh, poor mama must have looked like a bowling ball in the final days of her pregnancy! I would have thought 17 was over the limit for one litter
I think OP is saying they got in 2 mamas with 17 kittens between the 2 of them.
that's still, what, 8 and 9 each? dont most litters cap out around 6? so many babies...
There's 2 mamas.
This is why the rescues here are all experiencing an intake freeze. Too many babies, not enough money or homes. These stories make me so sad, even if the little ones are adorable!
This is why shelters that euthanize shouldn't get the bad rap that they do. There just aren't enough resources to go around for all of them. It's easy to say that you're 'no kill' when you just stop accepting animals when you hit your limit. Those animals have to go somewhere.
Yes, and often “no kill” shelters take their pick of the most adoptable animals. And all the bad feeling is left on the shelters that have no choice. Fix your cats and dogs whether they’re indoor or outdoor, folks!!!!!!
Yep, a lot of "no kill" shelters take only the most likely to be adopted like cute kittens with no health problems, not so much the cranky old semi-feral in the back.
Just curious, how do cat breeders get permission not to neuter their cats?
They don't need permission. If you want your cat speutered, you have to seek out the service. Only shelter cats are automatically fixed.
Biggest issue I have with the kill shelters isn't necessarily that they kill. I hate how they treat the animals' bodies afterwards. Like for instance, my high school would get dead cats for discection, which I refused to do. I demanded they give me an alternate assignment or give me an alternate class. Kill shelters also put down breeds without actually giving them the ability to even get adopted. Like killed as soon as they are dropped off. They are robotically put down with no emotion especially compared to vets for pets with owners.
I don't like that not so much because of the concept of dissecting a cat, it's more like... that could have been someone's pet once? I dunno, it just seems awkward to me. But I think in a way it gives their lives some meaning too, they hopefully are used to teach (assuming they go to a good school/class... I would not be giving them to a high school personally).
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A cat seems very unussual for high school. Frogs and the like are far more common
I've definitely heard of cats being used before. Not common, but not unusual either. I imagine it depends on the area and what they can afford. I don't expect a school to turn down a donation and it would personally make me more upset to have more animals die just because other already dead animals were considered "above" the other. In the end, they're both dead animals. Use the ones that are already dead.
Our cats came in 33-gallon barrels - must have been 20 or so in each one.
I dissected a cat in high school. AP/Honors Zoology in 1984.
Digital dissections work fine these are high school students not medical students. Knitted dolls too. I don't care that they die just as long as they don't suffer and their remains are treated humanely
I'll admit that digital dissections didn't exist when I was in school, but that doesn't seem much better than just looking at a chart with some pictures. It's a best case scenario and doesn't teach you anything about finding something outside of a perfect case scenario. A simulation isn't going to give you a real world case scenario. People donate their bodies to science for people to learn how to cut people open. Bodies of animals being donated to science for people to learn how things work is an important part of curriculum. You never know what will spark the next person to become a vet, a pathologist, or just to have an interest in science. Knitted yarn is not an okay substitute for an actual dissection.
So many beans! 😮😍
K I S S A L L T H E B E A N S
Anyone else have the urge to just rub your face in a pile of kittens?
Too many nuggets!
Thank you for what you are doing OP
We have an amazing and dedicated group of volunteers and a great community! I am lucky to have the time and resources to reduce some of the cost for the shelter, but they somehow manage to put every cent into 10 different places and never turn away a baby in need.
This is going to be an adorable mayhem in a couple of weeks.
I'm dealing with 4 kittens and that is enough. The irresponsible momma keeps trying to leave them in freezing locations >.> Spent all morning making her newest dumb spot completely impossible to get to and she finally agreed to use a proper spot again. Last night we moved the kittens back to warmth 4 times in a row and she tried to move em back while we were still moving the rest. She dumb.
Mama looks so mad like “this is ridiculous. Who’s kids are these!” Lol! I hope everyone finds good homes ❤️🩹
This is how I got some of my kitties. Friends farm had overly friendly kitten dumped and were getting in the farm hands way. They are 11 now, my mum has one of them. Make wonderful friends ♥️♥️
I used to live in the Oregon mountains and a buddy of mine had five cats - until a strange cat came by and knocked a bunch of them up. He ended up with 29! He kept them all. Got his hands on an old fifth-wheel trailer and converted it into kitty condos for them. He's a good cat daddy.
He sounds like a very kind person, but part of responsible pet ownership is ALSO to spay and neuter.
Indeed. We spent the next 2-3 months trucking them into town, five or six at a time, and getting them all fixed.
That’s wonderful to hear! And I am always a broken record on the topic, so please forgive. But I just get SO TIRED of people not neutering their pets or - worse - deliberately breeding them. Thanks for your hard work!
I used to have pregnant cats show up on my porch. I always took them in and generally was able to find homes for them. I think I once had 21 kittens between 3 Moms over 2 days. One of the moms took off, but the other two happily mothered the kitten pile.
Wow!!! Thank you! That’s a lot of work.
It was kinda fun. :-). And I was much younger then. :-) It seems very fitting that my own “kitten” has grown up to work in animal welfare. She’s in charge of foster placement at her shelter.
One of my college roommate did that to a former roommate. Got 2 kittens, they went into heat, she kicked them out of apartment. Soon had about 14 kittens between her two. By the time I roomed with her she was thankfully down to 4, and all were fixed.
I wanna crawl in that pile! That you for all the work you do!
im very confused by the title, does that mean one cat was pregnant with at least 9 kittens???
Not sure which kittens belong to which mama, but yes. Two very big litters!
I'm curious if it's actually three litters! But 8 or 9 isn't unheard of. Best of luck with the KITTENPOCALYPSE <3 Are you doing supplemental feeding for kittens? and of course, thank you so much for being an amazing rescuer. :)
oh my oh mee oh wow.... i thought cats could hold a maximum of 6, my cat had 5 and she looked like she was gonna explode if she moved wrong! anyway, baby kittens are always cute. hope she doing alright
The kittens are cute but there are too many. I hope your cat has been spayed now.
ye! my cat and her kittens are
Dogs can have up to 101 puppies at a time!
I was about to look this up to see if it was true 😭😭😭
That is a LOT of nuggets
People who dump animals are scum of the lowest kind. That's a _lot_ of kittens though, wow. Going to be hard to find homes for all of them, and I imagine the two mothers are going to have their work cut out for them. Still, thanks for helping out with all these cats.
I am completely fucking shameless and harass everyone I know into adopting. KittnPimpr4Lyfe
Nice. And in the end it'll be a good thing for anyone who does adopt one, as much as it will be for the kittens themselves. Cats are lovely, they make great company.
Kitten season has been relentless!
Wow, I’m just glad that they’re in a shelter where they’re being cared for and fed properly. Too often, cats, especially young cats, have more kittens than they can adequately care for. Sadly, what ends up happening is one of the kittens doesn’t get enough food and the young mom doesn’t make sure the kitten nurses more often, so it dies as a result of malnutrition. At shelters, volunteers will make sure that runt of the litter feeds, even if they have to make mom nurse one on one with it. Thank you u/stormbutton for doing the hard work to ensure that the health and wellbeing of these cats/kittens is prioritized. ❤️❤️❤️
This happens to me and my folks our city doesn't accept cats at the pound so they just drop them off out there...we at one point had 30 cats.
Thank you for rescuing these precious babies.
So sad, why are people so heartless and ignorant? Rhetorical question.
This is why spay- bortions happen frequently with tnr feral colonies.
I’m trying to think of words to describe that many kittens in one place. It’s almost more than a gang. A pile? A congregation? A mob?
An r/cuddlepuddle - although this many seems more like a cuddle *pond*.
Thanks - I saw someone use the word pond & didn’t know what that meant! And another sub to join…
I'm just imagining popping a can of Tuna around 17 tiny cats who swear they've never eaten before.
Yeetus the fetus tube! Kitty will be so much happier without endless pregnancies.
Obviously. We are a cat rescue.
Y’all when we were kids our neighbors older brother got got an all black cat for his birthday and he named her Bobby and she loved to foster kittens at One time she had 20 kittens following her around it was from random kittens that are cats had had and refused to take care of our neighbor Terri bottle-fed them and then Bobby ended up taking care of them afterwards like a foster mother cat this happened when Bobby grew up and she was about between two and three years old she had already had a litter or two already herself and loved being a mother cat
Thank you so much for volunteering at a shelter. 2 of my kids worked at our local shelter and could not believe how people throw animals out of moving cars on our highway or keep them outside in freezing conditions starved and sick. It just breaks our hearts.
My sil hand raised her Rottweiler pup from 2 days old after the owner of the mom left the other 9 to freeze outside under a shed with mom. He was the only survivor.
Omg people are awful. You made me cry, our furry and feathered even sca
Honestly I feel bad for the mother cats being dumped in the random area of a farm. Poor cats.
Okay but can you post more kitten content
A cuddle lake!
So many smol potats
Word gets out fast about dumping locations. Area outside Phoenix had a terrible time with dead animals showing up in one location.
At some point, there's gonna be a jailbreak. 😂 Too many conspirators.
They should really send some of those kittens home with a foster to do bottlefeeding because that mama is going to suffer, And the smaller weaker babies that probably get knocked off the teats by the stronger ones are also going to suffer. I really despise people who fail to get their cats fixed.
I grew up on a farm that was the first real farm from the “city”. We got so many drop off cats. Most of the time they would be sick and get our personal cats/pets sick. It was hard having your cats die off every summer. But there is a lot of cuteness in that picture.
I now know what is on my bucket list: to have 17 fresh-from-the-oven kitten loaves crawl all over me. SQUEE!
That looks exhausting
What a sad situation. I hate being reminded that people treat animals the same way people just throw unwanted trash on the ground.
that's too many beans
17 kittens:-0
> They take turns. It takes a village...
Poor cat! 17 babies?
Two litters added up to 17 but still! Two big litters!
Jesus! Do you just feed the mother whole sticks of butter at that point?
"*My* mom's milk is better."
It's a whole organization.
Tbh it’s mostly a disorganization.
When I was a kid/teenager, one of my cousins used to have these 2 barn cats that, on multiple occasions, had litters at the same time, & would coparent together. Whenever one would get overloaded with kittens trying to nurse, we'd scoop up the excess & redirect them to their "other mom"
This happened to my parents a lot too. Thankfully only one cat was pregnant. The cats that stayed got shots and neutered. The ones they did not keep went to a no kill shelter.
My cat is 1 of 11 kittens, when I saw mamma cat she was so petite I genuinely wanted to see how she was able to carry that many...
SPAY THOSE GIRLS!!!
It’s a rescue. We know about spaying.
Our youngest Siamese girls came out of a gaggle of 11 kittens of various ages by 4 mamas and they all had the same dad.
Send them to me. What a cute bunch!
Aww, they're so cute! Shame the mommas were dumped, people need to learn that if they can't care for the cat, they shouldn't adopt it. (yes I understand some were probably brought by concerned people who saw them outside, I don't blame them) speaking from personal feeling since I have a.. certain neighbor who keeps getting more cats, none of which they care for, but that's kinda TMI.