Press release from Esther Neonatal Kitten Alliance:
Esther Neonatal Kitten Alliance, a local nonprofit animal rescue, has opened Asheville’s first nursery dedicated to orphaned newborn kittens at 21 Pond Street. The nursery has been designed to provide intensive around-the-clock care to the youngest, sickest, and most injured orphaned newborn kittens who need incubators, supplemental oxygen, tube feeding, or other specialized care in order to survive.
One of the nursery’s first guests this year was a 2-week old kitten named Cooper who appears to have cerebellar hypoplasia, a neurological condition that hinders his ability to hold his head and body steady. “The rest of the kittens in Cooper’s litter are more than double his size,” says Andee Bingham, Executive Director at the Kitten Alliance. “He wasn’t strong enough to latch well and hold his own at mama’s milk bar, so the other kittens were pushing him out of the way. The rest of his family is now in one of our loving foster homes, but we kept Cooper in our nursery where he’s lounging in a cozy incubator and being bottle fed meals every 3 hours. Once everyone has started the weaning process we will reunite him with his buddies, but for now he’s loving all of the cuddles and one-on-one attention he’s getting!”
Unlike most other rescue organizations, the Kitten Alliance isn’t an adoption agency. Instead, they raise bottle-fed kittens until they are healthy and fully weaned at around 6-7 weeks old then transfer them to partner rescue organizations for eventual adoption. This system helps to take pressure off of organizations who are often not equipped with the time, training, supplies, and other resources it takes to raise neonates, and it keeps the Kitten Alliance’s resources dedicated to the youngest and most vulnerable kittens who need them.
The Kitten Alliance partners with animal rescues throughout our region to save the littlest lives, including organizations located in Buncombe, Henderson, Madison, McDowell, Rutherford, Transylvania, Jackson, Haywood, Yancey, Burke, Catawba, and Stanly counties in North Carolina, as well as a few counties in South Carolina. Bingham notes that the Kitten Alliance is “actively working to build partnerships with organizations in communities where orphaned newborn kittens are most at risk.”
Visit www.kittenalliance.org to learn more about Esther Neonatal Kitten Alliance and to schedule a tour of their new kitten nursery.
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