Independent rescues - how many cats are you turning away?

[Angiew]

cov cp have 80 kittens and are having a homing event next week.....don't know how many adults

[Teresa Pawcats]

At the end of the day we each do what we can manage and it doesnt matter whether you save 1 or 100 as long as you do it right.

[JackSpratt]

Mark, I by no means meant to underestimate what the larger rescues do.

[Gill (sneakiefeline)]

I know that Ron at Brighton currently has over 60 cats and kittens which is a huge number for a small recue and it sounds like all rescues everywhere are under unbearable strain.

[Mark]

It's no different for branches of CP - limited space and limited finances etc. People like Julie regularly have kittens in their bathroom. One of the hard things is trying to keep a space for real emergencies. At the moment, people wanting to rehome owned cats are offered direct rehoming only with strays obviously taking priority.

[StreetKatzRescue]

Like many of the independent rescues on here, we are stuffed to bursting and then some more.  We are not really homing adult cats tho' kittens are going but how can you walk away the phonecall about mum and kittens in garden/under garden shed/on a farm or stables knowing that all the other larger rescues around are not taking in and if you don't they will either die or start breeding...  It's SOooo hard!

It's such a dilemma and we all want/need to get on top of numbers/vets bills/rehoming but when that phone call comes in...gosh, it's difficult.  We are full to capacity with a few spare bedrooms/utility rooms thrown into the mix but now totally full.

We have a waiting list but as a new-ish ie not-known-about-by-the general-public rescue, have still had to turn away 8 adult cats in the past 2 weeks.  May not sound a lot but each has been a very deserving case so a lot of angst 

Anyone who answers the phone for rescues - a very big hug from me!  Cos it's so not easy!

[Liz]

Sadly I think many rescues squeeze them in a hope homing picks up

We have said no more here except for the remaining ferals on the plot although I have just been approached by another cat charity to do some feral trapping for TNR and will speak to them but no more here its just too expensive as currently we are on projected expenditure of £20,000 for the current and outside crews we already have - that does include the dogs as well but as I am not working no more will have the luxory of becoming Clan Cats

Please bear in  mind all my outside cats have the same treatments as my indoor ones ie - boosters, Program injection, worming and spey/neuter done at our cost with no outside help except OH's salary! 

[Gillian Harvey]

I think our Trust has about 40 cats at the moment, but these are all spread around 10 or so foster mums.  I know from speaking to our coordinator the other day there were about 17 cats waiting to come in (waiting for pen space) currently. And several of us have squeezed in extra cats/kittens over the past couple of weeks, in rooms in our houses, or even using the safety gate areas of the pens temporarily. I don't know the number actually turned away though, will ask at our next meeting. 

[JackSpratt]

As Dancer said, if you're an animal lover it's a conversation that does tend to crop up. When trying to encourage people to neuter or spay their cats, having these sort of figures to try and illustrate the importance is pretty advantageous.

Thank you Lesley and Angie. I think the work the independent rescues do is pretty amazing, and to be fair some of the larger ones ain't all bad.

[Angiew]

As I'm the only coventry rescue on here, I can say I turn away at least 10 per week. Often twice or three times as many.

I say "only coventry rescue" because you will find that most people phone around so if Cov CP or rspca also used purrs we'd be counting cats 3 times. I did hear a rumour that the RSPCA shelter had a waiting list of some 400 cats.

As far as how many I'm comfortable with. It depends on how many fosterers we have and the cats and illness and other factors. However we are over what we can accommodate by a few and what compounds this is that cats are staying longer so that squeeze-an-extra-space-knowing-you-will-home-soon factor does not apply anymore.
 Rescue takes over your life and before you know it you are up to your ears in foster cats with no time for your own family. because of this a few years ago we put a cap of 4 foster cats per fosterer but most of us have had more than that all this year - in some cases 4 times as many. Capping the number of cats is supposed to stop the stress of having to many to look after and protect the group from a fosterer suddenly deciding to leave and needing to take in the cats. 4 cats can be spread among the group (especially if we all only have 4) but trying to accommodate an extra dozen when everyone is stretched is hopeless and we would have to resort to paying for board at a cattery.

 As our numbers increase so do our expenses on food, litter and of course vet bills - the latter nearly £11,000 since April.
As the funding we have decreases I am intending to reduce the number of cats we have in total so that we manage our size and no doubt ultimately our demise.

[LesleyW]

Well I think you know all of us independent rescues are full to capacity and speaking for myself it depends on how many calls I get each week but I would say in the last month I have turned at least ten away.


As for how many do I feel comfortable taking in, probably 20 or 30 less thanI already have but people put such pressure on us to help and such emotional blackmail that you end up taking in more than you want all the time.  As for large organisations, all I can say is that the largest one to me is full and they give my number out, even to their Inspectors.

[Feline Costumier]

I would be interested in the answer to this too. We are hearing more and more how overstretched rescues are, all rescues for all types of animal. I often get on my soapbox in day to day conversations about the subject and it would be useful when pleading my case in favour of all rescues to have some facts and figures to back it up with.

I don't think it unreasonable to ask the question at all.

[Teresa Pawcats]

May I ask the purpose of this question.

You say you would like to to be able to answer people honestly and factually. Which people, Who is requesting this information and why?

[JackSpratt]

On average per week? And anyone who works for a larger organisation - what's a rough estimate for number of cats waiting to come in?

How many cats do each rescue feel comfortable taking in? I'd like to be able to answer people honestly and factually. Thanks for reading.