Dr. Ellen Jefferson, who set up the successful kitten care program at Austin Pets Alive, gives a talk on setting up and running a neonatal kitten care ward at a shelter or rescue in this 17 minute video from Maddie’s Institute.
While the talk is designed forshelters and larger rescue operations, and focuses on orgizational strucure, much of the information is beneficial for anyone faced with caring for newborn kittens.
Austin Pets Alive’s Bottle Baby Program saves over 1,000 kittens per year that would otherwise be euthanized due to the high needs of orphaned baby kittens. The program began by mimicking an open admission wildlife center’s nursery, with no start-up funding and only a handful of volunteers. This presentation from the 2012 Maddie’s Shelter Medicine Conference at the University of Florida is given by Dr. Ellen Jefferson, Veterinarian and Executive Director of Austin Pets Alive. Since its initial inception the Bottle Baby Program has grown to ensure that every underage kitten that enters the open admission city shelter is saved.
Learning objectives:
– Discover how to cultivate a volunteer team for emergency transport, feeding, medical care and fostering of neonates
– Learn how APA treats common medical problems of neonates in a nursery setting
– Understand how to leverage your staff, volunteers, and foster homes to divide and conquer the immense time commitment these babies require
