If you don’t live in Phnom Penh, the question that is the title of this article might strike you as odd. You might think, “are there really that many homeless kittens that they need to dedicate a whole article to the topic?” The answer is a most definite “yes.”
For us in the Cambodian animal welfare community, getting calls from well-intentioned people that have just found helpless kittens on the side of the road is a daily occurrence. With this article, we aim to provide guidance on what to do when you are the one that spots the homeless animals.
These are Tux, Beans, and Lady, three kittens we recently rescued. MINISTRY OF CAT
What to Do When You Find Stray Kittens in Phnom Penh?
Here is a quick guide on what to do if you find kittens in the street. Every step is explained in more detail below:
Check to see if the mother is around
Check if the kittens are injured or sick
If there is no sign of the mother and the kittens don’t seem in need of urgent medical care, take them into your home and be ready to foster them
If you are not willing or able to keep them, start looking for a permanent home for the kittens.
1. Check if the mother is around
The first thing to do is to make sure that the kittens are, in fact, orphans. The mother could just be roaming around the neighborhood, looking for food or relocating other kittens but with every intention of coming back.
Unless they are on a dangerous spot, such as a construction site or a busy road, you don’t want to move them, as the mother won’t be able to find them afterward. Nina Carrucan, practice manager at Phnom Penh Animal Welfare Society (PPAWS), recommends that “If save enough, give the mother cat a chance to return.”
The same is true for pagoda animals. “They often have people caring for them and loving them as their pets. “Please ask around before you rescue a pagoda animal who actually belongs with someone,” says Tina Mayr, the founder of Animal Rescue Cambodia.
2. Check if the kittens are injured or sick
If the cats are visibly suffering from an injury or sickness, you should bring them to the nearest vet immediately. If the animals are rescues, several local vets and shelters will treat the kittens for free or at a discounted price. PPAWS, case in point, will do a free checkup on stray animals that people are trying to help.
Before taking a kitten from the street, remember to check if the mother is around. ARINDAM SAHA
3. Prepare to foster the kittens
If you’ve waited long enough and concluded that the mother is not around, it’s time to get the kittens. ARC’s Tina recommends approaching the animal slowly and cautiously. “Your safety always comes first,” she says. Tina recommends speaking in a calm, gentle voice or using food to build trust with a frightened animal. To capture the animal, use a blanket.
While at this point we could advise taking the kittens to a shelter, the truth is that this is hardly ever a possibility (more on that later). Most shelters in Phnom Penh are dealing with an enormous volume of animals in need of help; they rarely have enough space to accommodate newcomers. You will have to take the kittens home and be ready to foster them for a while, at least until you can find them a more permanent home.
4. Start looking for a permanent home
In a best-case scenario, you would keep the kittens and they’d become new family members. However, if you don’t want to keep the kittens, know that this is perfectly understandable. Even if you can't provide a forever home for these animals, you're still a hero for helping them temporarily.
If you cannot (or don’t want to) keep the kittens long term, you should try to find them a permanent home. The best way to go about it is, of course, Facebook. Create a post to “advertise” the kittens to the outside world. Your post should include the kittens’ approximate age, a physical description (e.g. color, weight, and perhaps any defining trait such as a crooked tail), personality (e.g. playful, energetic, independent), vet treatment received (e.g. deflead, dewormed), and, finally, whether or not they have been desexed. If you know their FIV/FeLV status, mention that as well. Upload a couple of cute pictures of them, and your post is ready for the world to see.
You may be surprised how effective advertising a cat through Facebook is. We know of many people who have been able to find families for orphan cats this way. It may take a few weeks, but in the end, someone will contact you itching to take those kittens off your hands.
Post on your personal profile as well as on the various animal welfare Facebook groups, such as Cambodian Animal Adoption and Fostering Forum group and Cambodia Pet Adoption & Rescue. Feel free to send Ministry of Cat a message and we will gladly share your post as well. If you do all this, those kittens are as good as adopted!
Can I Just Drop the Kittens at the Nearest Shelter?
This point is actually quite contentious and hard for some people to understand. Cambodia does not have an animal welfare system like some other countries might. There is zero public money going into this. All the work done in this area is carried out by non-profits with very limited budgets.
Some may criticize these organizations for not taking in the kitten they just rescued. What they don’t realize is that the city has an inordinate amount of animals in need of help and that these shelters are already operating at maximum capacity. In addition, every animal is a considerable cost to the organization, which also has other important work to focus on, such as sterilization and awareness campaigns.
All this is to make one point: if your plan is to drop the kittens at a shelter and then call it “mission accomplished”, you’re probably going to be disappointed. Often, shelters in Phnom Penh are completely full. So, what do you do? Well, the only thing you can really do: you take the kittens home to foster them, at least temporarily.
We hope saying this doesn’t discourage people from rescuing. If you find a kitten in the street, you should, most definitely, help. But, unfortunately, we don’t live in a country where helps simply means taking the animal and dropping it at a facility down the street. Here, helping means taking responsibility for the animal. It means taking it home and being ready to nurse it, at least until you can find them a more permanent home.
Helping a kitten in Cambodia means being ready to foster her, at least temporarily. WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
Caring for Kittens
So, you’ve found some helpless kittens in the street crying for help. After making sure the mother is not around, you took them home to foster them temporarily. What now? This is what you should do next:
1. Bring the kittens to a vet for a health checkup. These kitties need to be dewormed and deflead. On top of that, the vet will check for any other conditions. Importantly, the vet will be able to tell you how old they are, which will determine how often to feed them.
2. Buy the supplies you need to care for the kittens. To properly care for the kitten you will need:
Kitten formula: In Phnom Penh, you can buy kitten formula at any vet. Animal Rescue Cambodia also sells it. The most common brand is KMR.
A feeding bottle: If the cats are really young, they will not be able to lap the formula from a bowl, so you will need to buy a feeding bottle.
A few sachets of kitten wet food.
A litter tray and litter: If you don’t want to buy a litter tray, you can always use a discarded box.
A basket and a blanket for the kittens to sleep on.
3. Set the kittens up in an enclosed space. Put the kittens in a place they cannot escape from and that is safe from other pets in the house. Any spare room, or even the toilet, will do.
4. Make sure the kittens are warm. Prepare a basket with blankets. You can also insert a hot water bottle under the blankets.
5. Begin the feedings.
How To Feed Kittens
The first thing to know is this rule of thumb: if the kitten is under two weeks, it will need to be fed every 2 to 3 hours. I know what you’re thinking—this is hard work. But, unfortunately, there is no way around it. This feeding schedule also applies to nighttime, so make sure to set up an alarm to feed those hungry mouths every 2-3 hours.
From two to four weeks, the feeding can be done at intervals of three to four hours. From four to six weeks, you can start feeding them four to six times a day.
Remember: if the kitten is under two weeks old, she will have to be fed every 2-3 hours. EMRAH AYVALI/PEXELS
This is how you prepare for a feeding:
Prepare the formula mix. For the KMR brand, you will have to mix two parts formula and one part water.
Put the formula mix in the bottle.
Heat up the bottle. The formula mix needs to be warm or the kittens will reject it. You can place the bottle in a microwave or in a pot with hot water for a few minutes.
Test the formula mix by putting a few drops on your wrist. Make sure it is not too hot (around 38 degrees Celsius or 100 Fahrenheit).
And this is how you feed the kittens:
Once the formula mix is ready, take a kitten and place her on your lap, leaning forward or flat on her belly. NEVER put a kitten on her back for feeding as she can choke.
Gently open the kitten’s mouth with your finger and insert the nipple.
You can tell the kitten has successfully latched on if you see bubbles in the bottle.
Hold the bottle at a 45-degree angle.
Kittens need lots of food as during the next few days they will double in size. Make sure she stays suckling on the bottle as long as possible. Each 24 hours, each kitten should be eating two tablespoons or 30 ccs of formula per 4 ounces (1 ounce = 29.3 grams) of body weight.
Once the kitten has finished feeding, grab a slightly damp towel or napkin and gently rub the area around her anus and genitals. This will prompt her to go to the toilet. In the absence of the mother to lick her after the feeding, it is extremely important that you do this. Otherwise, she will not pee or poo.
Put the kitten back in the basket and let them sleep.
Feed weak kittens or those not eating enough more often.
At about three to four weeks old, you can introduce them to wet food. After each feeding with the bottle, give them a bowl with a small amount of moistened food designed specifically for kittens.
And to properly illustrate all this, here is a short video in which Georgia Murphy, founder of Ministry of Cat, explains how to feed kittens:
That is pretty much it, my cat-loving friends. Hope it is helpful. Rescuing kittens from the street may sound like a lot of work, but it can also be a blessing. Rescuing helpless animals from almost certain death is a very rewarding experience—who knows, you might end up falling in love with them and adding a new member to the family.