Kitten Farms..do they exist?

[Desley (booktigger)]

The only things I can think of are actual farms, who dont get their cats neutered and then let their semi feral, wormy, fleay, sickly kittens go to nice unsuspecting people. Then there are irresponsible breeders who let their cats get pregnant too often, dont screen well enough - but not all are like that.

[Pinkbear (Julie)]

The situation hasn't progressed very much in 30 years, kitty.  Certain colours will command higher prices. I dare say the petshop owner you overheard knew he could get £80/£100 for gingers. People will pay a premuim for gingers, and also pure white or tabbies. Sadly paying a premium doesn't guarentee a good home, all it guarentees is an owner more interested in colour schemes. The petshop will probably only offer a tenner for black/black and whites as everywhere is awash with them.  Although some good owners do/have got their cats from petshops and will take very good care of them, a high proportion won't actually bother with neutering or leave it too late and hey-presto.. another accidental litter! 

The biggest problem is that kittens seem to all come at once. As soon as the weather improves in Spring, entire queens will come into season within a few weeks of each other. Those first litters will be lucky and get homes easily... then the floodgates open and supply vastly exceeds demand. From there on it snowballs...  Give it to June/July and the free ads will be awash with free-to-a-good-home listings. If those kittens are lucky they end up with rescues who will get them properly health checked and vaccinated and they new owners will be made to neuter them when old enough. But rescues only have so much space and sadly even we have had to turn kittens away this year. 

Kitten season started very late this year so everything was delayed and there are some Autumn kittens still waiting in rescues for a new home, so inevitably there will be BSBs litters out there being sold this Christmas to irresponsible people. I will be on emergency stand-by over the Christmas period for dumped unwanted Christmas present kittens. They'll be a nice, clean and warm kitten pen plus bedding and food at the ready in my bathroom. We are hoping for a quiet time but we never take anything for granted.  Over the last 3 years I've taken in and fostered over 250 unwanted and dumped kittens at all times of the year. And that's just one volunteer from one rescue. So what does that tell you? Many, many people still aren't listening to the neutering message. 

[kitty123]

30 odd years ago (so im told) kittens were given away free to good home  because there were so many of them. Nowadays some pet shops are buying them in, and one pet shop i was visiting someone came in with a litter of ginger & white kittens and the pet shop offered them £40 each for them! so goodness knows what the pet shop sold them for.

I can believe that some people who sold a litter for £200 would think it was a nice little earner & do it again, sad for the kittens though.

[Pinkbear (Julie)]

I thought everyone had their females fixed nowadays

Oh, Kitty if only that were true.  Setting aside the BSBs who deliberately overbreed as in the classic example Ellen quoted, there is so much ignorance out there. Some people still believe in old wives tales. [A cat should have at least one litter before being spayed... brother and sister won't breed... A spayed cat becomes lazy... A cat won't get pregnant before it's one year old...]

The kittens that end up in petshops are usually from a dubious source as well. Often from an accidental litter. There's so many unwanted kittens around a petshop doesn't have to look far for 'stock'. 

With dogs, accidental matings still are rare as mostly dogs do not venture outside the home on their own. Idiots do deliberately over breed certain dogs like Staffis and most litters are not mistakes. There is much greater opportunity with certain breeds of dogs if a person felt inclined to farm puppies. The craze in things like Labradoodles being a good example as everyone seems to want one and there are relatively few responsible amd respected breeders actually breeding them....  But with cats, 'accidental' matings are inevitable if you let a full queen outside. A kitten 'farm' wouldn't last five minutes as there's unwanted kittend everywhere.   

I would argue that there are no responsible or respected breeders of Labradoodles. A Labradoodle is not a breed. It is a crossbreed. There is no "breed standard" or any required health checks.

That's a whole other thread though!

Point taken. 

[Den]

With dogs, accidental matings still are rare as mostly dogs do not venture outside the home on their own. Idiots do deliberately over breed certain dogs like Staffis and most litters are not mistakes. There is much greater opportunity with certain breeds of dogs if a person felt inclined to farm puppies. The craze in things like Labradoodles being a good example as everyone seems to want one and there are relatively few responsible amd respected breeders actually breeding them....  But with cats, 'accidental' matings are inevitable if you let a full queen outside. A kitten 'farm' wouldn't last five minutes as there's unwanted kittend everywhere.   

I would argue that there are no responsible or respected breeders of Labradoodles. A Labradoodle is not a breed. It is a crossbreed. There is no "breed standard" or any required health checks.

That's a whole other thread though!

[Dawn F]

sadly no they don't

[kitty123]

I was wondering where pet shops got their kittens from!

I thought everyone had their females fixed nowadays, i know both of mine have been done!

[Ellen2010]

Talking of BSB's I had one near me that did cats and would sell them for only £20 a time but would rehome the kittens at 4 weeks old to people.

Well yes I do have one of the kittens from a litter but did not pay for it as she had been homed at 4 weeks and kept in a bathroom for 13 weeks with very little human contact so was behaving like a feral. When I got my cat spayed at just over 5months my friend had been stupid enough to pay for 2 kittens from this person but it was to make sure they had a good home and the female cat was pregnant for the 3rd time in 21 weeks.  So just dropped hints at the vets about concerns for the mother of my cat and they asked for all details and reported the person to RSPCA and she was made by being escorted to the vets with her females and male cats to be neutered.  Yes the two females that were old enough to produce kittens were both pregnant and RSPCA told her their was enough unwanted kittens so it would be kinder to have the kittens aborted and if she did not they would prosecute her for continual breeding of the cat as it was neglect and cruelty and she was putting her life at risk.  The original female was just 3 years old and had her first litter at a year old but was pregnant with her 21st litter when the RSPCA went round.

When my friend got her kittens she gave me a call as they were covered in fleas at 4 weeks old for me to help her bathe them with stuff she had got from the vets to clear them.  When we were rinsing them off neither of us were sure at first whether it was diarrheoa or just dirt out of their coats.  They were bathed and two days later I went round with some frontline spray to give them further protection.  Needless to say they also had a bad case of tapeworm so advised my friend to get to the vets for wormer for them because of their age of 5 weeks by this time to be treated and explained the implications of what it could mean if it was not treated.

So yes they are out there in a fashion and just needs a couple of people to step in and mention to vets where and the history of where they came from to have the RSPCA to go round, must point out the RSPCA had been round a year earlier and given the person vouchers to have this done and she had not used them.

[Pinkbear (Julie)]

Almost all non-pedigree kittens advertised on free ad sites, on supermarket noticeboards and even in vet surgeries are not health checked prior to rehoming, bred from queens who haven't been screened and may even be carrying genetic defects due to inbreeding. Some are 'accidental' litters but many have been deliberately bred for profit. There's no need for intensive 'kitten farms' as there's a back street breeder in nearly every road of every town and between them all they churn out thousands and thousands of kittens each year. Such people ask prices in excess of £70/£100 for a ginger or tabby kitten for example. The 'market' for kittens is over supplied by at least 50% in my experience. I can't see why anyone would bother to intensively farm moggy kittens (unless for vivisection purposes). 

You may find certain irresponsible and ruthless pedigree breeders do try to breed more intensively than BSBs but to be honest that's really rare. To command decent prices for pedigree kittens it would need to come with paperwork and queens test results for certain breed specific conditions as well as common problems like Coronavirus. That's an expensive venture if you're going to do it properly to the highest of standards and very costly if you get it wrong... so not really an area that intensive breeding is going to be an obvious choice. 

The biggest growth area for breeding for profit that we have found recently is breeding from non-registered pedigrees and/or resulting pedigree crosses. A back street breeder will acquire a queen from a dubious source and then let that queen mate with the first tom that comes along. Then they advertise 'crosses' for silly money (I've seen £150 for a Bengal cross that looked like a regular tabby to me...).

With dogs, accidental matings still are rare as mostly dogs do not venture outside the home on their own. Idiots do deliberately over breed certain dogs like Staffis and most litters are not mistakes. There is much greater opportunity with certain breeds of dogs if a person felt inclined to farm puppies. The craze in things like Labradoodles being a good example as everyone seems to want one and there are relatively few responsible amd respected breeders actually breeding them....  But with cats, 'accidental' matings are inevitable if you let a full queen outside. A kitten 'farm' wouldn't last five minutes as there's unwanted kittend everywhere.   

[Gill (sneakiefeline)]

Yes they do exist I believe but you may find something under back street breeders.

Just curious why you ask?

[kitty123]

I have heard of puppy farms before, where people breed dogs for money and dont have health checks done before breeding with them, & dont look after them properly, but can you get kitten farms? I heard you can..but i have never seen any sites on search engines or seen anything on the news about them.

So do they exist?