How to Adopt Out Kittens on Your Own

Maybe a feral cat found you and had her litter of kittens in your shed. Maybe you felt bad for your neighbor and took the kittens they found. Perhaps your cat was accidently bred because you didn't have her spayed soon enough. Whatever the case may be, you now have kittens that you need to find homes for.

Many people think that finding homes for kittens is easy. Some people give kittens away for free to anyone who will take them. Others don't even bother to wait and make sure that people actually came and got them. Still others say that it is the animal shelter's responsibility to find homes for pets so they drop them off there. If you must choose one of the three options listed above, please take your kittens to the shelter. However, if you would like to find good homes for the kittens on your own, please read on.

Spreading the Word

It would be impossible for you to find homes for kittens that no one knows about. Yet many people don't realize that they need to advertise their available kittens in some form. You can place an ad in the newspaper, put up a small poster at your local vet's office, create an online ad, or advertise in a number of other places. When deciding where to place an ad, I recommend you consider how many people will actually view the ad where you place it. When I recently helped some friends of mine adopt out some feral kittens they found, they were initially spreading the word by letting people at work know that they had kittens available. This can be a good method, but if you work in a small office, you're not really reaching a lot of people. If you put your ad up at the vet's office, everyone there will pretty much already have at least one pet (otherwise they wouldn't be there). The newspaper audience will largely depend on which newspaper you place your ad in, as will your online audience. In helping my friends rehome their kittens, I went the online route. Online ads are generally free and the ads reach a larger population (not just people in your local area). I choose Petfinder classifieds and Craigslist. Petfinder unfortunately didn't bring many inquiries, but I would recommend trying them anyway. Craigslist brought in the most inquiries because I was able to put photos up with the ad. All of our adopters came from Craigslist. Some people like Craigslist, some people don't. It doesn't really matter which sites you use, so long as you somehow reach enough people so that your kittens find adopters. Remember that spreading the word about your available kittens is the most important step in the adoption process. You aren't going to find any adopters if you don't seek them out.

Charging an Adoption Fee

While it is very common to see people offering free kittens, I would like to take a moment to discourage you from doing this. Many people with good intentions want to give the kittens they found away for free. My friends were initially convinced that because they found the kittens and therefore got them for free, they should not charge an adoption fee. However, you have to remember that not all people have good intentions. There are bunchers who will take your free kittens and sell them to labratories. There are people who will torture kittens and they're more likely to take a free one than pay for it. There are even collectors to watch out for, who have so many cats that they cannot realistically care for all of them. While charging an adoption fee doesn't guarantee a good home, it certainly helps weed out certain types of people. I understand however that some people don't really want to take any money for the kittens they rescued, so I'll offer a few alternatives. If you don't feel right taking an adoption fee because you are not a rescue or shelter, you might consider donating the adoption fee to a rescue or shelter. If you're going to have the kittens spayed/neutered and vaccinated before adoption, you may want to make the adoption fee a reimbursement for those services (if you do this however, be careful that your adoption fee does not end up being too high, otherwise you may find it hard to interest any adopters in your kittens). My friends were very uncomfortable actually charging people for the kittens they had rescued. Rather than asking for a donation or any reimbursement, they told the adopters that there would be a specified adoption fee. However, at the time of the adoption they told adopters they would not accept an adoption fee. This way, they ended up with adopters who were willing to pay the fee, but they didn't actually have to receive the adoption fee to know that the kittens went to good homes. This is something you might consider doing if you are dead set on offering your kittens for free.

Spay and Neuter

If you've ever adopted a cat or kitten from an animal shelter, your pet probably came to you spayed/neutered. While not everyone who adopts out kittens on their own has them altered, I would highly recommend it in most cases. Even if an adopter agrees to spay or neuter the kitten in the future, you can't be sure that they'll have it done. If the kitten later escapes, perhaps it will once again be adding to the homeless cat population. There are low cost spay/neuter clinics out there to help you out. Ask your local shelter or your local cat rescue for recommendations. If you have a trap-neuter-release (TNR) program near you and you rescued feral kittens, you may be able to get them fixed at an extreme discount or possibly even for free. If for some reason you are unable to have the kittens altered prior to adoption, you might want to ask for a deposit that you will return to the adopter once they bring you proof that they have had the kitten altered. If you are adopting them out right at 8 weeks of age, you may not be able to have them fixed at the time of adoption. If at all possible however, it is best to have adopters wait until you can have the kittens altered to ensure that your kittens do not end up contributing to the cat overpopulation problem.

Do You Need an Adoption Application?

So now that you've advertised your kittens, decided on an adoption fee, and have had them spayed/neutered, you need a way to screen potential adopters. You should be receiving a fair amount of emails each day regarding the kittens (or phone calls, depending on what types of ads you decided to place). When I helped my friends adopt out their exceptionally cute feral kittens, I received approximately 20 emails per day. Due to the volume of emails, I decided to go with using an adoption application. This way everyone got the exact same questions, I didn't have to worry about forgetting to ask anything, and it was easy to keep things in order. If you've never volunteered with an animal rescue before (or maybe even if you have), I would highly recommend asking a rescue if you could borrow their adoption application so that you can see what types of questions you want to ask. Not everyone will want to ask the same questions, so keep in mind that you can change any application that you find to suit your needs. If you would rather be more personal and just talk to each adopter individually through email or by phone, that can work too. Remember that you'll want to have some initial screening process so that you won't end up turning people away when they come by to meet the kittens, wasting their time and yours. How you want to do that screening however, is completely up to you. You certainly aren't obligated to use an adoption application.

How Do You Decide Who Can Adopt?

Everyone has their own idea of what a good home for a kitten actually is. If I give you my list of criteria for a good adopter, it might not match your list. However, there are a few important things that you'll want to consider your viewpoints on before you decide who can adopt and who cannot. How do you feel about homes with kids? Is it okay if the family adopting has young children? What if the kitten will be a child's pet? Is it okay if someone wants to adopt just one kitten or will you only adopt them out in pairs? How much money are the adopters actually willing to spend on the kitten? Keep in mind that this is far different from how much money they actually make. Some people make a lot of money, but wouldn't spend more than $100 at the vet should something go wrong. Will you require that adopters already have a vet and can provide references? If so, what about adopters who have never owned a pet before? Would you adopt to someone who would keep the kitten outside? What if the kitten was only outside sometimes? If the adopter wanted to declaw the kitten, would that be acceptable? If not, what if the adopter told you that they were unsure about declawing? Keep in mind that there are several declawing references online that you could show adopters. Many people are uninformed about what declawing actually is, so they may require a bit of education. Would you adopt out the kittens to someone living in an apartment, or only to someone who owned their home? Will you take a chance if someone says they might have allergies? Would you adopt to someone who previously surrendered a pet to a shelter? Even if the circumstances couldn't have been avoided? All of these questions are things that you should think about. If it is important to you that the adopter does not declaw their cat, make sure that you find out their views on declawing. If it is important to you that adopters not have small children, say so in your ads so that those with small children will not waste their time and yours by applying to adopt your kittens. Remember that no one can create your criteria for you. What is very important to one person might not be important at all to the next person. Make sure that you can live with the criteria you choose so that you ensure the kittens go to good homes.

Basically, that's all there is to it. Get the word out there about your available kittens, work out what you'll charge (if anything) for an adoption fee, decide if you will have the kittens altered before adoption, screen adopters, and then make your decision(s). If you follow those basic steps, you should be able to adopt out your kittens in a reasonable amount of time (depending on your adoption criteria and adoption fee). Now for a few final words of advice... Remember to save contact information for all potential adopters until the kittens are actually in their new homes. Even the best adopters might fall through for one reason or another (a family emergency, a friend giving them a kitten for a gift, etc.) Don't give up hope and lower your standards too quickly, it may take awhile for you to find good adopters. However, you must also remember not to have unrealistic expectations. If you spent $5,000 last year at the vet to save your cat's life, that is great. If you're going to turn down anyone who wouldn't spend $5,000 should a veterinary emergency arise, you'll probably end up keeping those kittens. Also, although you'd love to hear all about your rescued kittens in their new homes, you'll want to be careful not to scare people off. Remember that you are adopting out the kittens, not seeking custody agreements. You might want to visit the kittens once a month for a year to check up on them, but realistically, even the best adopters aren't going to want that much invasion of their privacy. My last piece of advice is to remember that kittens are easier to adopt out than cats. Once kittens reach about 4 months of age, they are much more difficult to adopt out. Adopt out your kittens while they are still cute young kittens and you will receive a good number of inquiries and potential adopters. If you follow this guide, you should have no problem adopting out kittens on your own.