These cuties were found living outside with their mum and we were asked to take them in so they didn't grow up to add to the unhandleable feral cat population. Fortunately mum is friendly and the whole family should be easy to rehome once the kits are old enough.
Healthy cats like this should need minimal expenditure on veterinary treatment—basically just flea and worm treatment, vaccination and neutering. Animals with serious injuries are much more of a difficulty.
At the moment we've had to impose a 12 month moratorium on taking in animals whose injuries will require surgery, simply because it's so hugely expensive.
You may have seen Wood Green's appeal to raise the £5,000 needed for surgery on an injured dog they took in last week. Most of the operations needed to treat strays we handle will be more likely to fall in the £400-£800 bracket, but we simply can't produce the money to fund several of these each week.
So it was with a very heavy heart that one of our volunteers took a call about a stray cat with a broken jaw. His surgery was estimated at £250; a comparatively small amount, but an amount that we simply don't have if we're to carry on meeting all our other welfare commitments.
Most of the other charities are in the same boat, but by phoning round Janine managed to locate a space in one of the shelters run by the National RSPCA which have an in-house vet so would be able to do the surgery themselves. Obviously there is still some cost involved, but doing it this way will get it down to an amount we can justify as not being likely to put other animals at risk.
Another of our
volunteers will transport him there tomorrow morning.
It's not ideal; injured animals should preferably be moved around the country as little as possible, both for their own welfare and to save resources in terms of fuel and volunteers' time.
