Emergency DIY shelter build for abandoned kittens
152Just after Christmas I was woken by my wife informing me that six kittens had been located near us and no mother; we did the natural thing and collected them for their safety ( the property had a mowing crew working there! ). We collected five and the sixth was missing, fearing the worst I spent the night looking around the area and we subsequently realised there was a total of NINE kittens and at least two mothers.
Lack of desexing is a major issue and results in population explosions of cats within six months.
This video is a time-lapse of a quick and dirty enclosure build so that we'd have somewhere safe to hold the kittens for a couple of weeks. While it wasn't ready for 24/7 housing it has provided us with the capacity to give the kittens a few hours a day outside for fresh air and sunshine as well as entertainment watching the garden/yard.
There are more enclosures to be build in the near future and hopefully we can find good homes for these kittens soon enough.
Please, if you have a cat or dog, please desex them; there's already so many unwanted ones put to sleep every day, save the heartache and tears of the people who are involved in dealing with the consequences of not desexing.
UPDATE: 2023/01/16: All 9 kittens have been handed over to a rehoming agency in Townsville. It's not a guarantee but it's a better chance than them staying with us for sure.
We're both feeling pretty down as per normal, always feels like such a betrayal when they (kittens) were just starting to get to really bond with us, and this is the trouble when you foster care for kittens for more than a week or two.
We're being innundated with rain now so no more progress on the enclosure until things have dried up.
I'm going to build a raised platform with 150x45 (6x2") and place 16mm formply or similar on as the flooring. On top of that I'll slide the current enclosure over and from there I'll build an extension with 70x35mm to provide a new grass/dirt area.