Kitten Season Is Here

Sylvia Gethicker and her daughter, Sylvia Landis, thought they were all prepared for the skinny gray tabby cat they were fostering at their Alexandria home to deliver her litter of kittens in May. They had put together the “Cadillac” of beds for her, a comfy canvas castle tucked away in a small bedroom. The birth was expected in one or two weeks.

But Gethicker was walking around the block at lunchtime not long after the cat’s arrival when Landis came running toward her, with her hands in the air. “Mom,” she said, “Gracie’s having her kittens on the couch!”

Gracie and her litter, safe and comfortable in the foster home of Sylvia Gethicker and Sylvia Landis (Courtesy of Sylvia Landis)

At the same time, in other foster homes around the area, kittens were spending their days jumping in boxes, climbing on curtains, napping, grooming and chasing balls and tails, all part of their journey toward adoption.

Welcome to kitten season.

Kitten season is the time of year — beginning in spring and tapering off in late fall — when the majority of kittens are born, says Elena Carver, Animal Welfare League of Alexandria (AWLA) Foster Care Coordinator. The majority of kittens come from stray cats who birth their litters outside, often in backyards, crawl spaces and sheds. “If the mother cat is nearby, we advise people to leave them alone, as she generally provides the best care for really young kittens, but if they look unhealthy or cold, we need to intervene,” Carver said.

Foster Care Coordinator Elena Carver provides a first round of preventive medicine to a kitten during a routine checkup at the shelter. 

Kittens must be spayed or neutered before adoption, and they must reach a weight of 2.5 pounds before having that surgery, said Carver. So it’s up to her and Foster Care Coordinator Kimberly Weilnau to quickly match them up with foster caregivers who can see them through their early days. About 180 individuals and families now serve as fosters for many types of animals for the AWLA, some specializing in caring for homeless kittens. “It’s extremely rewarding work,” Carver said. “You can take a tiny baby and raise it into an independent creature that can become someone’s cherished pet.”

And the AWLA has once again seen a cascade of kittens this season. Some kittens come in as newborns with their mothers, others all alone. Doka, for instance, was only two weeks old when she was brought in from an Alexandria construction site.

 Taco and Tuesday were about 10 days old when a citizen transported them from a backyard where no mother was in sight. The brown, striped kittens seemed healthy except that an examination showed their fur to contain a type of lice specific to cats. Carver put out a call for a foster willing to take the kittens on and treat them for the parasites, and Martina Cotton of Lorton stepped up.

Taco and Tuesday, found abandoned in a backyard, get some TLC at the AWLA shelter during kitten season. 

Tiny Taco and Tuesday needed plenty of attention from Cotton, an immigration lawyer who has been working from home. Less than two weeks old, the kittens required bottle feeding every three hours, round the clock. And every other day Cotton had to give the kittens a special bath to combat the lice. As they grew, Taco and Tuesday were all kitten, playing hard for five or 10 minutes at a time, sleeping for an hour, and then repeating, Cotton said.

Cotton housed the kittens in a spare bedroom to separate them from her two pet cats, but her very large German shepherd/boxer mix Ginger just couldn’t stay away. Ginger has been a doting mother to the dozens of foster cats and kittens who have shared her home, grooming them and cuddling with them. “After bottle feedings, Ginger would clean the milk off Taco and Tuesday’s faces,” Cotton said.

Foster kitten Tuesday face to face with her very large buddy, Ginger, at the home of foster caregiver Martina Cotton. (Courtesy of Martina Cotton)

Some foster kittens need some creative intervention from the AWLA. A brown-and-black tabby kitten named Bluejay was craving feline companionship at her foster home after her mother weaned her. At the same time, Goodall, the tiniest member of a litter of six kittens named for conservationists, staying with foster Carolyn Healy, was underweight and not quite ready to move on for adoption with her litter mates. Carver decided Bluejay and Goodall should meet. Foster caregiver Jo Kang picked Goodall up at the shelter and brought her home to meet Bluejay.

“Goodall was a little bigger than Bluejay but also very friendly,” said Kang, of Alexandria. “Bluejay whined a little at first looking for her mom, but Goodall tolerated it well.” It wasn’t long before the kittens were sleeping together at night with Kang’s resident cats. And one of their favorite pastimes became swatting at the tail of Kang’s German shepherd. The dog apparently was cowed by the kittens.

For Gethicker and Landis, fosters to new mother Gracie, the home birth turned them into midwives on the spot. Three gray kittens, two boys and a girl, were born to Gracie on their blanket-covered couch as the fosters wiped the kittens’ faces to stimulate breathing when needed. Mother Gracie began nursing them right away, Gethicker said, and later the four became content to stay in the “castle” in the bedroom.

Pearl visits the AWLA for a regular checkup before returning to a foster caregiver’s home. 

Gethicker took the kittens to the shelter every two weeks for wellness checks and the necessary shots. Finally, in July, Gethicker transported them back to the shelter to be made available for adoption. “It’s a lot of fun, very rewarding work,” said Gethicker, who has fostered dozens of kittens. “Gracie was a great mom — and at least she didn’t decide to have the kittens in the middle of the night.”

Soft Landings for Kittens 

Most kittens receive the best level of care from their own mothers, and the AWLA wants to make sure they have the opportunity to stay with their mothers to grow healthy and strong. If you find kittens who appear ill or obviously abandoned, please contact the AWLA at (703) 746-4774 for guidance on whether they need help and how to provide it. Kittens available for adoption can be viewed at AlexandriaAnimals.org/Adopt. To schedule an adoption meeting, click HERE. If you’d like to help kittens in your community, donate items from our Kitten Season Wish List.

This story was originally printed in the Alexandria Gazette on July 29.