Kitten Season Chronicles Part 1

Posted on 06. May, 2009 by Mark in Animal Welfare, Cats

This post is a bit of a departure for me. It’s the first of several you’ll see in the coming weeks focusing on what’s known as Kitten Season in the animal-welfare world. For those who don’t know about Kitten Season it essentially runs from spring through fall when the warmer weather converges with female cats’ heat cycle and animal shelters start bursting at the seams with unwanted kittens. Organizations such as the San Francisco SPCA are on the front line dealing with this kitty deluge through fostering programs, adoptions and spay/neuter clinics. Other, more species-specific welfare organizations here in the Bay Area such as Nine Lives Foundation (to be featured in an upcoming post) are also extremely busy this time of year.

For this first post I’m focusing on a foster family for the SF SPCA that’s taken on five 4-week-old kitties until they’re stong and old enough to be put up for adoption. It’s tough and exhausting work: the kitties need constant feeding, cleaning and attention and are very vulnerable. The shots below were taken on their second day at the foster home.

Caveat: while photos of kitties are inherently cute I really want to stress how serious an issue Kitten Season is (or pet ownership in general, for that matter) and urge anyone reading this to help by spaying or neutering your cats, volunteering at a shelter, becoming a foster parent or adopting.

Ernie the Foster Kitty

Ernie on the Prowl

Oscar up close

Ernie well in hand

Ernie Grooming

Ernie on watch

Bert the ninja

Bert batting his baby blues

Mary - syringe feeding kittens

Foster Kitten Feeding from Syringe

Bert, Ernie, Cookie & Oscar after dinner (covered in food)

Cookie Gets a Bath

Was that so bad?

Cookie hangs out with Shannon (foster dad)

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Tags: Cats, Foster Kittens, Kitten Season

9 Responses to “Kitten Season Chronicles Part 1”

Guido the Italian Kitty

06. May, 2009

Meowvalous. I used to be that inky dinky!
Jamie

06. May, 2009

love this post mark. I so want to foster kittens, and fergie loves them, but I’m worried they might be more work than I can handle. and also worry that fergie might be too rough with them (although she spent her first 7 months of her life with a cat). this post makes me want to look into it more to see if it might be a good fit for us. thanks so much for bringing attention to an important issue.
Rhonda

07. May, 2009

Oh goodness! These babies are so adorable!!! Many kudos to fosters everywhere!!!!
Tee 'n' the Wildlife

11. May, 2009

So beautiful! Right this very minute I’m fostering six little darlings~~three red tabby and three brown tabby two to three~week~olds who someone in a nearby suburb found under a bush. Too dangerous to just leave them there: raccoons, coyotes, foxes, dogs, etc. Their mother took excellent care of them: they just saw the vet they are in excellent health and eating like the madly growing little babies that they are. Right now they are sacked out waiting for me to slap myself awake to feed them again. Of course my little kitties think that my instance in caring for babies is just too too AWFUL! My youngest, Tallulah, is afraid of them (!) and little Lilibet curiously peeked under their blankie over their carrier! About once a day I bemoan my serious lack of sleep in caring for infants but ALL the rest of the time I love it! And them! They will all go to excellent homes in our area.
Mark

12. May, 2009

Wow. 6 of them. That’s quite a job you’ve taken on. I’l be posting a follow-up to this later in the week and you can see how the kitties are doing at 6 week.
Tee 'n' the Wildlife

24. May, 2009

I looked at your next series of these little babies’ photos and they look so much more secure than in the earlier photos: clean, warm, fed and loved. It’s scary to be such a teeny one without your mama for the first time. But those great big humans do a wonderful job of caring for teeny-weenies.
Elizabeth

04. Feb, 2010

OMG!!!!! so cute

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

It’s Kitten Season! - 07. May, 2009
[...] Pet Photographer Mark Rogers has just posted the first in a series of Kitten Season photo essays, so check it out for a top o’ the morning cute [...]
Smile Like a Dog » Kitten Season Chronicles Pt II - 14. May, 2009
[...] recently returned to see the SPCA foster kitties I first photographed a few weeks ago. Now at 6 weeks they were larger and stronger and no longer needed to be syringe fed. [...]