Animal Welfare Professionals

Hello all!

For the first time ever in my 6 year fostering career I am fostering kittens! I have been doing a ton of research on kittens for my own fostering journey and to be better equipped to support our fosters. I am currently doing the "Taking the Fear out of Bottle Feeding and Basic Kitten Care" course.

With that being said, one of the big "hot topics" I have been seeing and reading about is "Single Kitten Syndrome". We have always encouraged fosters to take kittens in pairs, but I am wondering what everyone's adoption policies are for adopting out single kittens into single cat homes. We have super low barriers for fostering and adopting, but I realized we do not have a policy in place for single-kitten-adoptions.

I am curious to hear what everyone else is doing, and what everyone's experience is.

Thank you in advance!

#AdoptionsandAdoptionPrograms

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Jenay Bennett
Assistant VP of Animal Ops |
Foster Director
Dallas Pets Alive!
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We do not require folks to adopt more than 1 kitten. We explain that you are now their littermate (and the target of play wrestling, etc. etc.) now if the kitten doesn't have another cat to focus on, but it's their choice. We also provide a lot of information/disclaimers about teaching appropriate behavior. Keep in mind that not every housing situation allows for multiple cats.

If we get a singleton kitten who is already showing some behavioral concerns (usually raised without a mom) at 8 weeks old, we will send them to foster to work on that before they become available for adoption. I've fostered several of our behavioral kittens in the past! Always.... fun. Hahaha. 

We also do follow-up calls with adopters as well to try to catch any issues early (we check in 3 days, 3 weeks, and 3 months after adoption). 

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Erin Dams
Community Relations Coordinator
Roanoke Valley SPCA
Roanoke VA
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Hello!

So we send out singletons to foster all the time as we do not want to mix litters for health reasons. I also have fosters who do not have another other animals in their home so are raised as the only kittens. The biggest thing is socialization and exposure to a lot of different sights, sounds and stimuli. We also don't recommend our foster kittens interacting with adult animals until after 14 days incase they have any underlying diseases. 

We also do not limit any adoptions based on if they want to adopt a single kitten. A lot of times we will explain that this kitten is a singleton so may take time to learn being around other animals or have other quirks from being raised by itself. 

I have had kittens in litters that behave worse then singleton kittens so it really depends on their personality and their exposure in the foster home. We don't always know the path they are going to go on so as long as the adopters are willing to work with them that is the most important thing. 

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Katie Pauli
Foster Coordinator
Yellowstone Valley Animal Shelter
MT
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