When fostering kittens isn't cute

Recently you may have seen some social media posts from me about a trio of foster kittens. You may have also noticed that soon after getting said foster kittens I went radio silent on what happened to them (unless you asked me). And if you asked me about them, you probably got a version of this story:

Fostering kittens for me was a disaster. And let me tell a cautionary tale if you're ever thinking about fostering kittens. 

I had been thinking about fostering for some time when I decided to take the plunge. I wanted to foster because my cat was born in the wild and rescued at a month old. She came to us still quite skittish after being at the rescue so we had to spend a lot of time with her to get her happy and comfy with us and humans in general. So therefore I wanted other kittens like her to have a chance to live the comfy life, and I thought I had the patience from going through a similar process with Smudge already. All the kitten fostering videos I had seen seemed to show that with kittens, they were even faster to warm up than my cat was, but you just had to deal with a bit of hissing in the beginning. So I was keen! 

I volunteered through a local rescue run by an individual with a passion for cats of all ages and origins (so not the SPCA or a larger organisation which focuses on easily socialised kittens and already domesticated adults). I was part of this rescue's Facebook group, and one day, the stars seemed to align. We had just had a new flatmate move in who loved cats, were able to make space in the lounge for a crate, and so when I saw the rescue page asking for fosterers for some kittens they'd trapped on a farm in the Wairarapa, I put my hand up to volunteer.

The offending Wairarapa farm kittens.
From left to right: Diamond (very sick with parasites), Sad Cat, and Houdini

Well, little did I know, these guys were in no way a great way to start fostering. They were four months old, extremely feral - having had zero contact with humans before being trapped - and one was quite sick with parasites. I was barely able to touch them, and in the two weeks that I had all three them, only the sickest made any meaningful progress, I think mostly because it was quite sick and didn't have the energy to resist me. These guys did not want to be there; they escaped their crate three times (further traumatising themselves), and would hiss every time someone even got close to their crate. This was not what I signed up for.

I had no support apart from a foster coordinator coming over to drop the kittens off and talk about trauma (which gave me weird vibes). She told me I could expect the kittens to take three to six months before they were ready to adopt. Six months! I had been lead to believe that kittens would take at max three, and any further delays would be due to vet shortages and therefore waitlists for spay/neuter appointments. There was absolutely no discussions as to what fostering these kittens would entail before I even got them, or what they were like behaviorally, or just my capability more generally. Literally a woman came over, gave me some kittens, talked about some not super relevent stuff, and left without any proper guidance. I thought the kittens I got were fairly spicy but had some behavioural indications that they were at least interested in humans and so therefore good candidates for socialisation (and good candidates for a first time fosterer...) But these guys definitely were not interested. I felt left in the dark, taken advantage of in my naivety, and was participating in something I did not want to participate in. I did not sign up to wrangle feral kittens against their will.

All the support I had was from online articles and YouTube videos on socialising older kittens, which is when I started to feel deeply uncomfortable with how everything had gone down. Basically all the resources I read talked about how wild kittens and cats older than three months are generally not candidates for socialisation unless they show behavioural cues that they want to be around humans; basically that they had a level of socialisation already. If a wild older kitten or cat is deemed an appropriate candidate for rehoming, they should always be placed with an experienced fosterer, and they will take up to a year to be adoptable, but potentially even longer. Everything just wasn't lining up. This did not describe the kittens I had in my care, or my own fostering experience. The rescue I was doing this for I knew meant well, but it seemed more and more like they were trying to save every cat they encountered regardless if it was appropriate, and not coming from a rational point of view on what is the best response for each cat or kitten they encountered.

I tried though, I really tried. I spent every free moment with these kittens, I made them chicken slurry treats with tuna, read them books to get used to my voice, tried to play with them, tried to pet them slowly. But they hissed at me, escaped, scratched me. I just got so exhausted and dreaded having to spend time with them when I got home. I was neglecting my own wellbeing by spending all this time with these kittens to try get a breakthrough. I felt so exhausted that initially I was worried I had long-COVID, until Jack pointed out it was the kittens.

I finally realised that I couldn't look after all of them any more after two weeks into fostering. I broke down crying on a Sunday morning after trying to feed them wet food and them hissing at me and backing into the corner of their crate wanting nothing to do with me. They seemed to be making no progress, even regressing from previous days, as they had done in the days previously. I hated spending time with them and was growing to resent them, though on speaking to my flatmate, she sensed that I wasn't feeling great about them from the beginning. I had to call it quits.

I ended up keeping one kitten because the rescue coordinator convinced me to "have a good exprience". Well, as much as it was easier, and that kitten turned into quite a nice cat and was adopted out after being with me for three months, my cat rather disliked this remaining kitten. And when I say dislike, I mean fucking hated this kitten. We got the spraying, the hissing, the lashing out from little Smudge. Safe to say, when the last kitten left, I was absolutely relieved.

Sad Cat (renamed Sami for "Samishii Neko") looking a little bit nicer than when she was with her siblings

OK cool so that's the gossip, but so what? Well, please let this be a cautionary tale to you. My advice to any considering fostering, based on this experience, is really consider if you have the time to foster a kitten and make sure you check out the organisation you want to foster for. 

Firstly the time aspect. You need at least an hour of time every day -  but more is better - to be with the kittens/cat socialising them, and outside that time trying to be in the room with them as much as possible to passively socialise them to humans. What will you be giving up or changing in your routine to accommodate this time, and are you OK with doing that? I refused to give up any of my other after-work commitments, so I thought I would be fine to have the kitten time come from my after work/after-commitments relaxing time (from like 8pm onwards). This cut into the time that I generally read or do something quiet before I sleep which turns out I need for my sanity. I became exhausted and unable to really put my heart into the kittens after a while because I was so tired.

Secondly, check out the rescue organisation itself. Make sure you know what this rescue is about; do they specialise in easily socialised cats only (under 12 weeks kittens and surrendered socialised adult cats) or do they also take chances on older wild cats who show promise (and are you OK with that)? Or do they take in all cats regardless of behaviour, age, socialisation level? (That last one would be a red flag in my opinion). What is their policy for deeming an older wild cat appropriate to be socialised? What kind of training and support will you get through the process? What is their preferred socialisation method, and do you agree with it? Do they come to your house beforehand, talk to you, really make sure you know what you're getting into? Do they respond promptly to messages and/or emails? My mistake in this regard is that the rescue I fostered for takes in all cats, and this along with their preferred socialisation method, I disagreed with (though I never actually got their socialisation guidance document until it was too late...) They also didn't do their due diligence (as much as I didn't do mine), and assumed I could take on feral kittens just because I volunteered. It just was not the right fit for me, and was not what I expected at all and would have been completely avoided if I had asked more questions before diving in. 

And this goes without saying: you need to build experience. Regardless of who you are fostering for and what their ethos is, make sure you take on an easier case first - as in under 12 weeks kittens or an already socialised adult - so you have a taste for what fostering is like before taking on anything more difficult or complex like wild cats. The rescue took me socialising my skittish cat as being experience with ferals, which it absolutely was not. Smudge was nowhere near to being feral with us - and I never claimed her to be - but she was extremely skittish and touch shy, so I knew how to build trust with a cat slowly and get them keen on human touch from my experience with her. Although similar, it was not the same, and I was probably better suited to wild born kittens under the age of 12 weeks. I was nowhere near prepared for these kittens who were so old and set in their ways. I would expect a rescue to be able to draw boundaries for volunteers so they don't lose resource or have a situation like mine by expecting way too much from them.

A happy Smudge now living in a feral kitten-free house

Will I foster again? No, mostly because of my cat and her response to having to share her space. But if Smudge was a bit more amenable to other cats, I would consider it again in the future. But I would certainly be doing it through a larger rescue such as the SPCA where they have more organisational support and align with what I believe in terms of the possibilities of cat socialisation. Is it mean to not give wild feral cats a chance? Well, to be honest, I think that you have to prioritise your resources and look at the bigger picture. Socialised cats and kittens for adoption from fostering aren't just a by-product of 'saving' cats in the wild. It is also for people to adopt a cat and have loving, friendly pets. And feral cats who aren't interested in humans very rarely turn into those loving pets. They turn into cats who tolerate human presence because they can't go live back in the wild. And then they get stuck at their fosterers for years never being adopted because not many people want that kind of cat. And then that fosterer can't take on new cats because they don't have space with this long term feral foster. It's not fair on the cat and it prevents the fosterer from helping more cats.

I want to end this by saying, the rescue I fostered for was honourable in its intentions. I have no hate for them or their cause, just that I think they are overwhelmed because they will take on any case, and therefore had no time for considering their fosterers. Which in the end, turns into worse outcomes for all, humans and cats. My views on fostering, cat rescues, socialisation are completely my own and I know that opinions on pets are like opinions on raising kids - multiple and divisive. I honestly hope we can get to a situation where there are no more wild cats, and all kittens come from reputable breeders who are registered with a national organisation or the council, and no kitten is adopted out without first being neutered/spayed. That's the ideal world I'd love, where there were no hard choices about whether a cat is appropriate to be socialised or not.