IF your home could use a few extra furry little friends for a few weeks, consider applying to become a kitten foster carer with Bendigo Animal Relief Centre.<\/p>\n
BARC is looking to find as many foster carers as they can ahead of kitten season, which is expected to peak from spring until autumn.<\/p>\n
Cat foster care coordinator and senior animal attendant of cattery, Kayla Harris, said the number of kittens needing care each season is hard to predict and being well prepared can make all the difference.<\/p>\n
\u201cBARC has been in operation for just over two years now so we\u2019ve gone through two kitten seasons and each time we thought we were going to be able to predict it, but you just can\u2019t,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve put the calls out for kitten foster carers because my theory is the more carers we\u2019ve got available to help us, the more kittens we can provide help to.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we can have an army of foster carers, that would make me super happy,\u201d she said. \u201cThey are so important and so crucial.\u201d<\/p>\n
BARC\u2019s program includes the care of either a mother cat and her litter, or weaned kittens in litters of about four to eight.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur foster carers are super important because they keep the mums and kittens out of the shelter environment,\u201d Ms Harris said.<\/p>\n
She said kittens are adopted out at about 10 weeks of age, and it\u2019s important they spend those first weeks of life outside the shelter and instead socialising with foster carers and other cats in a home.<\/p>\n
\u201cTen or 11 weeks spent in a foster home is obviously the best, versus 10 or 11 weeks sitting in a shelter,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is where the foster carers are so important to help facilitate the kittens growing up in healthy and nurturing environments and then coming back and being able to get adopted within a week or so.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ms Harris said program participants aren\u2019t responsible for neonatal kittens that require specialist care like syringe feeding at regular intervals.<\/p>\n
\u201cNinety-five per cent of our foster carers either do mums and bubs, in which case mum is taking care of all the feeding, or the kittens are weaned,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of people might be put off by the idea of thinking they\u2019re going to have to do hourly feeds or anything like that and that is certainly not the case.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur foster care program is for anyone who has got the ability to love, care and feed. That\u2019s what we\u2019re looking for, we\u2019re just looking for loving homes.\u201d<\/p>\n