The employees of the animal shelter in the Eindhoven region are running ragged. And not without reason, because the influx of kittens is enormous. Already more than 300 kittens have arrived at the shelter on Kanaaldijk-Noord this year. That’s eighty per cent of last year’s total. And that has consequences. “Sometimes you start skimping on general care”.
“It’s doing what you can”, Alma van Dorenmalen says.. She works as an administrator at the Regionale Opvang Zwerfdieren Eindhoven (rescue stray animals eindhoven, ROZE) foundation. In seven months, almost as many kittens arrived there as in all of 2022. As a result, the animal shelter is forced to compromise when it comes to care.
“You do everything as quickly as possible, so that sick animals can still get all the attention they need”, Alma explains. It also affects the housing of the young kittens. “You start putting more kittens together in pens, which sometimes makes it more difficult to monitor them”.
All hands on deck
Several factors have made the animal shelter busier than last year. One is the closure of animal shelter De Doornakker at the end of December. As a result, all the kittens end up at the shelter on Kanaaldijk-Noord. But nature also plays a big role.
“A lot of domestic cats are still not neutered or spayed and they roam the streets. They mate and give birth to a litter”.
Boxes full of kittens are then dumped at the ROZE foundation. However, it is not only domestic cats that are causing the huge influx. “There are also many street cats running around reproducing. We pick those kittens up as well.”
Birth control
Alma, then, does have a message for cat owners-to-be. “In principle, a male or female cat should be neutered or spayed by default. After all, a cat can always escape and come into contact with the opposite sex. And then things happen very quickly”.
This is evident at the animal shelter where almost all of the one hundred and twenty pens are filled. Because of this large influx, the animal shelter could use some extra hands. Not only are volunteers being sought, suitable owners are also welcome.
Source: Studio040
Translated by: Bob
https://studio040.nl/nieuws/artikel/enormetoestroomkittens#google_vignette
