With the warm spring weather ushering in kitten season, the Front Street Shelter is in need of volunteers to help foster.

“When kittens come to the shelter, they need a safe place to grow up until they’re old enough to be spayed or neutered and placed up for adoption,” said Front Street’s Communications Manager Ryan Hinderman. “Because our shelter lacks the space and staffing to care for so many kittens, the volunteers are true lifesavers.”

1,966 kittens were fostered by volunteers last year.

Kitten foster volunteers take litters of at least two kittens and choose which kittens to take home based on their comfort level. Some kittens are perfectly healthy and eating on their own, while others may be sick, injured, or so young that they need bottle feeding.

The shelter provides the necessary supplies and all medical care while kittens are in foster. Kittens usually need foster for one to two months.

If you are interested in learning about the different types of kitten and cat foster opportunities and how to successfully become one, there will be an instructional session from 10 to 11 a.m. on May 18 at 2127 Front St.

Here are the shelter’s recommendations if you find kittens:

1. Figure out how old they are using this video on Front Street’s website. 
2. If they’re less than five weeks old, leave them where you find them or return them — they have a higher chance of survival if left with mom. Losing kittens is extremely distressing to the mother, who will return to care for them. The mom will also get pregnant again very quickly without the kittens to care for. When in doubt, sprinkle a wide ring of flour around them, and wait several hours before looking for mom’s pawprints. If there are no pawprints, contact the shelter again for intake.
3. Once five weeks old, the kittens can be separated from mom and socialized. Contact the shelter to see if there is capacity for the kittens, or if you’d like to raise and adopt them out yourself, visit KittenLady.org/kittencare.
4. If possible, trap the mother and take her to a feral cat spay/neuter clinic to get fixed to stop the cycle of kittens. Free or low-cost spay neuter clinics and more information on trapping can be found here on the City’s website.

The goal is always to spay and neuter cats in order to keep the population down, explained Hinderman.

All cats or kittens adopted from the shelter are spayed and neutered in order to be adopted. To learn more about becoming a foster volunteer for kittens, visit the shelter’s foster page.