Pets
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Where to get a kitten?
in Pets
Is there somewhere else to get a small kitten other than Craigslist, the humane society or the pet store? I'd prefer not to pay more than like $20 bucks for a kitten. Thanks!!
Re: Where to get a kitten?
"The hardest thing is to live richly in the present without letting it be tainted out of fear for the future or regret for the past." - Sylvia Plath
Really? You want to get a kitten that will need to get vetted and you can't spend more than $20?
If you go to the Humane Society and they charge you $65 at least you know the kitten has had its shots and is healthy.
If you can't afford more than $20, you can't afford a pet.
-- Thoughts become things, choose the good ones! --
You also don't want just one kitten. Kittens do MUCH better in pairs, so they have a partner in crime and leave you alone when they get all crazy. Because they are crazy.
Also, you want a kitten that is at least 8 weeks old. I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "small."
As mommyof4boys how getting a kitten from a random neighbor, without any vetting, is going. She's handling it like a champ, but it is NOT cheap. From the vaccinations to the vet visits, the spay/neuter to the meds...it's a lot more affordable to get a cat that is fully vetted from the Humane Society/a shelter.
For example, my cats cost something like $75 each from our county shelter. They had all their shots, had been seen by a vet, had been treated for parasites, and were neutered. All that vet care would add up to well over $400 per cat if done at a regular vet.
My Lunch Blog
OP, I get budgeting, but as the other posters have said, this may not be a realistic figure. As you've already learned, most places charge more, because they have to spay/neuter/vet the cats. It costs them money to do all that, and even with the adoption fees, they often lose money on the animal.
I would suggest watching your local humane society. Sometimes ours will have special adoption days where pets are cheaper.
Or check out animal control if you have one. They might be cheaper as well.
And the others are right, pets are expensive, so I would make sure you have enough money put away for any emergency.
Snow!
<a href="http://www.thenest.com/?utm_source=ticker&utm_medium=HTML&utm_campaign=tickers" title="Home DGetting a kitten for $20 is not by any means a bargain anyway. You will then have to pay hundreds of dollars on getting it fixed, all of the needed vaccinations, etc. My friend did this for a stray he found and hoped to keep-- a bill of about $700-- and then found out his fianc? was deathly allergic (broke out into hives and had difficulty breathing) and they had to find a home for him and was out the $700.
Whereas we got Sherlock from the humane society, paid $100 and that included all of those things.
Life and Love at #16 | our married life blog
Ditto PPs. If you're looking for the deepest discount on just getting the kitten, you're probably not in a position to properly care for it from a financial standpoint
Check out this LINK on very generalized annual pet costs. The total for a cat will most certainly be on the low end if you're getting a kitten, which needs more initial vaccinations, spay/neuter surgery w/ possible recovery meds, and the startup costs of buying things like a litter box, scoop, scratching posts, etc.
ETA: Hmmm....MUD? Newbie with 1 post...
B/w 1/8: betas 17,345, progesterone 25.6
I just paid $125 each for my kittens and consider it a bargain. They were fully vetted and neutered. If I had picked them up for free, I would have spend about 4 times that amount doing the vetting on my own. Plus, I already knew their health situation instead of picking up some free kitties and having no idea if they have fleas, illness, etc.
And ditto Katie on 2. I am quite happy they wrestle each other all night long instead of my feet.
The adoption fee for each of my cats was $35, and I thought that was really cheap! We gave the rescue more than that as a donation.
Also, please do not buy from a pet store. Ever. PetSmart is fine when they have adoption days (they only adopt pets out through partnerships with local rescues and shelters), but a for-profit pet store that charges hundreds of dollars for each cat? No. My cats, who I adopted out of a rescue, were originally pet store kittens. Their genes are awful. One has a degenerative genetic problem, we still need to discover if the other one has the same disease. They are not great examples of the breed (but they are cute). The pet store handed them over to the rescue because they got sick and the pet store didn't care about making them well, and couldn't sell them like that. Many of these animals come from mills or back yard breeding situations, and eventually create more strays, more owner surrenders at shelters, and more euthanized animals.
40/112
FYI, $165 today for an appointment, shot, blood work, worm treatment, and flea/tick/heartworm treatment. That was ONE kitten. We will have to set up the appointment to get her neutered which will be about $100-150 around here. Honestly we were going to get one from a humane society but the neighborhood friend had asked us if we wanted a few as their cat had not one but TWO litters of cats. When I had pets as a child we had gotten a few from friends so I didn't think anything of it. Little did I know we'd be paying this much for it. I'm pissed but what can I do? I'm not returning the kittens just because the other person wasn't responsible.
5 cats. 1 baby.
Why are you only willing to spend $20? I'm concerned that if you can't afford that you can't afford to care for the cat as others mentioned. Cheap kittens aren't great anyway bc they usually haven't had proper medical care and that gets expensive. At the low cost clinic it cost us $125 per kitten for spay neuter, vaccinations and FIV felv testing. 8 week old kittens need boosters every four weeks until they're 16 weeks so that costs $ too.
Its probably better to invest some
More at the beginning than later to make sure you get a healthy kitten from a reputable source. Or adopt an adult who's already been vetted, a lot of shelters around here charge $25 or so discounted around valentines day.
I adopted two kittens for free. Let me tell you their story.
I was told that someone had accidentally had a litter of kittens, one of those situations where the vet wouldn't spay before 6 months but the cat got pregnant at 5 months situations. I knew things wouldn't be perfect, but I thought, "hey, I can give one a home".
I got E first. He and J were from the same litter, but I was only going to take one at the time. I picked him out when he was 4 weeks old, he was just the perfect little guy and he chose me. He and his littermates were in great shape.
They called me when he was 7 weeks and said I needed to pick him up. I wasn't very happy with this, so I told them I wasn't able to get there right away, getting him that extra needed week with his fur mom. When I picked him up he had horrific ear mites. I took him to the vet, got his shots, got ear meds, and the vet assistants spent almost 30 minutes picking the mites down to a tolerable condition. After about 3 extra vet trips for various shots and worming (totally gross to wake up to a cat puking up worms right next to you.) I decided little E needed a friend.
When I had picked up E the guy said his cat may have gotten pregnant again already, so I thought maybe I would check in just to see what happened with that, even though I had the shelter on the top of my mind. I sent him an e-mail. I received a nice email back stating that yes, the cat had gotten pregnant again before they could spay her but that someone never came to pick up the last kitten. This guy wasn't a bad guy by any means, I don't want anyone to think that, but you could tell he was not in the state to be caring for cats.
I decided to swing by and pick up the last kitten, thinking "well, if he isn't the one for me, I can keep him safe until he's rehomed." When I got there, mama cat ran right over to me and rubbed on my leg. Then I saw these tiny little gold eyes peeking at me from inside a dog house. The man came out and tried to coax him out, and when he finally did the cat was SKINNY.
I immediately thought this is more than I can handle. I asked him what was wrong with him, and after a few more questions it came out that he could no longer afford cat food when the kittens were 7 weeks, and that he had been giving them raw fish from the pond and broken eggs to live on.
I took J with every intent of taking him to the shelter, but E had been in my car and was pawing at the window like there was no tomorrow ( when we are moving he is in a carrier, when parked for awhile I hook his harness to a seatbelt.) He remembered J. I know it shouldn't have worked that way, but for some reason he did. (Maybe he just remembered mom's smell on him?) I took the second carrier out of the car and put J in it, then rubbed hand sanitizer all over me and put Emmett in his. He kept trying to get as close to J as he could and was cooing at him. J just kept slow blinking back.
Anyway after deciding to at least bath and feed J before handing him over, I decided he was just too perfect to abandon, and I set up vet appointments. Turns out he was septic from a massive ear infection caused by mites, a respiratory infection, bladder infection, severe worms, and a plethora of other problems that lead to him having to be on heavy meds and special foods for his first 6 months with me. He also has digestive issues because cats can't eat all parts of raw fish without it depleting their vitamin supply.
After a year of being with me, he started to regain his lost hearing, and his ears were like little satellite dishes going all the time he didn't like the change. Lost of behavior problems and skittishness for the year that followed. Thankfully I had lots of animal behavior classes under my belt or that would have been even more money for a "cat whisperer". Still more meds and shots needed the following year.
Discovered they both have hereditary feline asthma. Have to treat that. In 5 days it will be E and J's 3rd birthday. I wouldn't trade them or my experience with them for anything, but I can state without a doubt that my mother's $50 siamese kitten from reputable breeder (but papers had gotten lost) was FAR FAR less expensive in the last 10 years of his life than my furboys have cost in their 3 years.
Also for those interested, I went back and rescued the following litter ( 3 kittens) and gave them to good homes. Mama cat got spayed.