Second Chance Volunteer Fosters Help Care for Newborn Kittens

EAST BROOKFIELD — Some families have found a great way to spend their time during the current stay-at-home advisory — helping to care for newborn kittens for Second Chance Animal Services. As of last week, Second Chance had four litters of kittens in their care, and volunteer fosters are providing round-the-clock care for them.

Fosters follow many of the steps of the lifesaving kitten protocol, which was developed by Second Chance to help save the lives of prematurely born kittens, including weighing the kittens twice a day to ensure they are receiving the proper amount of nutrition. The protocol was published last year to help increase the odds of survival for premature kittens through animal-welfare organizations across the country.

Second Chance has so many kittens in foster right now that it dedicated its weekly Wish List Wednesday Facebook post to the kittens in hopes of receiving more kitchen scales to help fosters track each kitten’s weight. Second Chance shared a video of a foster kitten nicknamed Mitten being brushed with a toothbrush. The toothbrush feels like a mother’s tongue for the kitten.

Mitten and his sibling are getting extra attention from the whole family. Five-year-old Lila asks her mom to bring home foster kittens and likes to help feed and bathe them daily. Her mom says fostering provides important life lessons, from caring for others to saying goodbye to the kittens when it’s time for them to go back to Second Chance so they can find forever homes. Lila’s 2-year-old brother Callen is doing his part, cuddling with the kittens to provide socialization under the close supervision of mom’s watchful eye.

When the kittens are old enough, they will return to Second Chance, where vets will clear them for adoption after they are spayed or neutered and vaccinated. The next stop is the adoption center in East Brookfield, where they will be available for adoption.  

Second Chance is currently working to process all the foster applications that have been submitted by animal lovers looking for a way to help during the COVID-19 crisis. For more information becoming a foster, visit secondchanceanimals.org.