Finding kittens for free is not always the ideal way to adopt. After all, there are animal shelters all over the country filled to bursting with cats and kittens that need good homes. In these cases, you usually have to pay an adoption fee to cover the kitten’s early medical needs, shots, spaying or neutering, and the like. Adopting from an animal shelter or kitten rescue society means that you are saving a life. Still, sometimes even that much money is unavailable, so you find yourself looking to find kittens for free instead. There is nothing wrong with this, and there are three primary methods that people go about doing it.
Find a Friend with Kittens
Almost everyone works with or knows at least one cat owner with an unsprayed queen cat at home, and almost everyone has had the experience of having said person offer kittens for free to friends or coworkers that can provide good homes for them.
The only problem is that the availability of kittens from acquaintances is spotty at best, so you may not be able to find one when you are looking.
Check the Classifieds
Many pet owners who do not spay their queen cats will find themselves with a litter of kittens and no one to give them to. With the best of intentions, they will take out a small ad in the local newspaper advertising kittens for free to good homes. In these cases, you can find healthy, adorable little kittens to adopt and love.
The risk you run with adopting a kitten from a stranger is that you don’t know anything about the owner or the environment where they came from. They may have been abused or malnourished, which can be very damaging to their health, particularly in the case of newborn kittens. Be sure to have them examined by a vet to rule out any health problems.
Adopt a Stray
This is one of the less common ways that people find kittens for free, but it is also one of the most humane. Due to the skyrocketing pet population, there is no lack of stray animals roaming the streets, and some people will talk out into their yard to find a litter of newborn kittens tucked away somewhere. Many people will not intend at first to adopt when they begin tending the stray animal. It usually starts with an occasional bit of food or water until the cat keeps coming back and everything organically fits together.
If you choose to adopt a stray cat, you can feel good because in all likelihood, you saved it from an early death. Just be sure to take it to the vet once it trusts you enough to transport it. Having lived its life in the “wild,” it may have picked up a number of parasites or diseases that need treatment.
There are, of course, other ways of finding kittens for free, but these are the most common and the ones that most people are at least passingly familiar with. The primary concern you will have, unless you are adopting the kitten from a reputable person that you know, will be the health of the animal. Do yourself a favor and take them to the vet to be checked out so any potential problems can be dealt with.
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