Kitten season begins

Right now marks the start of kitten season, where animal shelters see a big increase in the number of kittens brought in.

The Pocatello Animal Shelter said kitten season usually runs until about October, or sometimes even to Thanksgiving time, depending on how long the weather stays warm.

“As soon as winter’s over, the cats all get out and get a little frisky, which means we get more little guys like this guy here,” said Rhett Nicks, director of animal services, as he held one of the tiny kittens the shelter has already had brought in. “Kitten season usually starts right around now – we’re already seeing kittens in boxes, we have residents bringing us kittens that were born under bushes and things like that. So what happens is we just fill up super, super quick.”

About 20 million kittens are born nationwide each year. The Pocatello Animal Shelter gets around 2,000 cats and kittens per year. Nicks said it’s not that the shelter doesn’t love kittens, it’s just a challenge.

“Typically in shelters, kittens and cats, especially if there’s a lot of them tend to be a really big resource drain,” Nicks said. “They come in groups of eight, or four, or five. They don’t come as a single kitty.”

A lot of the kittens the shelter gets are no more than five or six weeks old. Keeping kittens that young alive, especially if there is no mother with them, can be tough.

“They’re so cute, they’re so fluffy but we worry so much about them because you house a whole bunch of them, all it takes is one sick kitty to get everybody sick,” Nicks said. “Some of these guys are a little too small to vaccinate which means they don’t have any resistance to any of the bugs out there.”

Nicks said the number one thing people can do to help lower the population of kittens going without homes, is to spay and neuter your cats.