Everything You Wanted to Know About Being Kitten Foster Parents

I've mentioned a few times in passing that Casey and I are kitten foster parents, so I decided to make a post about it!

We started fostering for a local animal rescue about a year ago--it's the same rescue we adopted Sushi from. Over the past year we've fostered around 50 kittens. 

How did you get into fostering?
We accidentally fostered a kitten that Casey's brother found. I posted about her on instagram and she was adopted by a friend. We enjoyed it so much that we decided to reach out to the rescue we adopted Sushi from, since we knew they were foster based. Within a few weeks of reaching out, they messaged me that they had two kittens looking for a foster home. We've been fostering ever since!

How do you not keep all the kittens?
This is for sure the question we get the most. While kittens are adorable and we totally fall in love with them, we know we are able to help more cats in the long run by fostering than adopting. There's no way we could have adopted 50 cats in the last year, but we've helped 50 cats find loving homes. That's 50 cats that likely would have been put down in our local pound (which has an 80% kill rate). 

What do you have to do as a foster?
Take care of them, love them, get them to adoption events and vet appointments.

Do you have to pay for their food or vet care?
Nope! The rescue handles all vet care and gives us food and litter. We just have to get them to the vet and pick up supplies when we run low.

Are you responsible for finding them homes?
Nope, but we help! The rescue posts all animals on PetFinder and the Facebook and Instagram pages. They also host adoption events every few weekends. (We are responsible for bringing the kittens, and we stick around to help out when we can.) I make sure to take good quality photos and share a description of each cat so people searching online know a little about the cat's personality. I also share a lot of photos on Instagram and Facebook and we've had multiple cats adopted because their humans found them on my Insta.

Do you foster adult cats? Or just kittens?
We've fostered a few adult cats over the year, but our cats struggle more to adapt with adult cats than the kittens. Because of that, we personally choose to only foster kittens.

How do your cats get along with the foster kittens?
It took some adjusting, but now our three cats (Tigger, Sushi, and Cocoa Puff) understand how things go. We bring in new kittens every few weeks. Almost every time, it takes a few days for our cats to adjust to the kittens (and vice versa) but it's not long before we walk into the living room and see cats and kittens cuddling. 

How many kittens do you foster at a time?
We foster 3-6 kittens at a time. We started off with two and slowly started bringing in more. When you've got litter and food, it's not a big deal to bring in another kitten. 

What's the most kittens you've fostered at once?
10. It was terrible, but the rescue was overrun with kittens so we were trying to help out. One of them had special needs and struggled with the litter box, and one of them was a very cute brat who just liked to pee wherever he wanted. I was so tired of cleaning up poop and pee. We now limit fosters to 6, and will probably foster less kittens in the future if we are fostering another kitten with special needs. 

How often do you clean the litter box? What kind of litter do you use?
We clean the litter box every day and sometimes twice a day. We only use two litter boxes. At one point we used four boxes and it was a pain to clean ALL of them. I'd rather clean two twice a day. We use a clay litter. I don't like paper litter because of the smell, and our cats don't like the pine litter.

What food do you use?
The rescue provides Science Diet kitten food for the fosters and we do Meow Mix for ours. We don't separate the cats to eat so big cats often eat kitten food and kittens eat Meow Mix. Our cats are particular about their food and if we buy a different brand, they absolutely refuse to eat it. They are spoiled.

Is it hard to let go of the fosters?
Honestly, no. We are happy for them when they get adopted and go to their forever family! Plus, it just means we get new foster kittens!

Can I adopt one of your foster kittens?
Yes! Reach out and I can hook you up.

Can you pretty please share kitty pictures?
You know I've got you.