Putnam Animal Shelter Asks For Help With Yearly Kitten Influx

The Putnam Animal Shelter is asking for your help with the annual influx of kittens this time of year.

Residents can donate both wet and dry food, as well as choosing to foster kittens to help prevent overcrowding. Shelter Director Jennifer Tracy said though the shelter has navigated similar situations for many years, being able to accurately predict around when the influx is going to begin and end helps.

“Cats are seasonal breeders so come around late spring, early summer, we start to see the explosion of kittens,” Tracy said. “And it continues in the area pretty much through-, it starts to taper down around the first of November.”

Tracy said the yearly kitten influx speaks to the importance of spaying and neutering cats. Tracy said people do not realize how quickly cats can produce multiple litters.

“There’s a lot of free-roaming cats, and they can get pregnant two or three times during the kitten season,” Tracy said. “They’re getting pregnant while they’re still nursing a litter. So they can have three litters in the period of late spring to early winter.”

Tracy said the shelter has some 60 or 70 kittens in the shelter right now as well as others in foster care.

“The really scary thing is by the end of the season that first litter’s old enough to start getting pregnant and having babies too,” Tracy said. “They’re not quite as bad as rabbits but they’re real close.”

Tracy said most of the kittens she comes across are from free-roaming cats and encourages people to fix them while feeding them. Tracy said her shelter is incredibly thankful for those who help foster cats, as it keeps her people from having to make tough decisions.