Consett Cat Rescue

12/07/2025

Just two of the 20 kittens we have in foster care and these lucky boys are reserved now.

We are allowing people to reserve them from now and they can leave us once old enough and are vaccinated, chipped and neutered.

Please note, we have very strict adoption policies.
All our cats and kittens are house cats - that is non negotiable.
Younger kittens cannot go to a home with no other cats. They must go with another cat if you do not have any cats already.
Small children are not always suitable to have kittens. We can discuss this with you if you already have pets but kittens are not toys and often do not cope well with younger children. They can bite and scratch when scared and so be dangerous to really young kids. We take in too many that have been in homes like that to allow them to suffer again.
Can you seriously afford a cat/kitten - if not working for example, then how will you pay emergency vet fees. You should not rely on PDSA (another charity) to look after your pet. Do not get a pet unless financially secure in the knowledge you can provide for it.

12/07/2025

The lovely Elaine has a stall raising money for us at Pelton Parish Fun Day on Sunday 13th July.
Do pop along and support us by visiting her stall
Thank you

12/07/2025

OMG helppppppppp

Further to the post ( https://www.facebook.com/ConsettCats/posts/pfbid02cbLZVEKsLkuM4CjSySguRNhF6V78ec8keLPmJXnYAsSZsKKhrhGiTz8NpaiAZj1Gl) I did the other day, another request for help came in yesterday.

A mum with 3 5/6 week old kittens in a shed at Brandon and the lady (in her 80s) needs help with getting them rescued.

WHEN WILL IT END

If anyone knows of any rescue who can help any of the cases I wrote about the other day or this new one, get in touch and I will pass on your details.
Will it take people walking past dead cats and kittens in the street before the public realise neutering your cat is the single most important thing you can ever do for it.

10/07/2025

Love this

🚫 Things Rescues Really Hate Hearing 🚫

Yes!!!...

(AKA: Things that make us want to gently scream into a pillow and rewatch videos of cats falling off sofas just to cope)

Let’s set the record straight, hun 😘

1. “Can you take it?”

No. Because it is a cat. A living, breathing, sentient being. Not a coffee table you no longer want. The second you call a cat it, we already know you're not rehoming out of love—you’re offloading responsibility.

💬 Better: “Can you help rehome my cat?” See, now we’re talking like humans.

2. “I want a kitten that doesn’t scratch, doesn’t climb, is litter trained, doesn’t cry, doesn’t shed...”

Ah yes, you’re after a plush toy. Maybe try Argos. Kittens are chaos. They scratch, scream at invisible ghosts at 3am, climb your curtains like Spider-Man, and sometimes p**p next to the litter box just to humble you.

💬 Reality Check: You want a perfect cat? We suggest adopting an imaginary one.

3. “Hi hun! My 3-year-old is desperate for a kitten!”

…Right. Your toddler who also eats crayons and thinks their toes are a food group is ready for the lifelong care of a living animal?

Let’s be real: if your child still wears Paw Patrol underpants, they probably can’t be trusted with a houseplant, let alone a kitten.

💬 Reminder: You are the adult. Make decisions for your child, not based on them having a meltdown in Pets at Home.

4. “I’m not paying THAT for an adoption fee—you’re scamming people!”

Sweetie. We lose money on every animal. Vet bills, vaccinations, neutering, worming, flea treatments, food, litter, toys… time. Want a free cat? Try the streets—but don’t come crying when it costs you £900 in vet fees next month.

💬 That adoption fee? It’s a drop in the ocean. You’re not buying the cat. You’re supporting the rescue that made it adoptable.

Other fan favourites:

🐾 “Can’t you just let them have one litter before neutering?” – No. That’s how we got into this mess.

🐾 “He’s not my cat, but I’ve been feeding him for 6 years and now he’s sick—come get him.” – So... he is your cat.

🐾 “I’m looking for a grey kitten”
- erm ? What about the others….

🐾 “I want to surrender my cat but only if I get updates and can visit.” – So… you don’t actually want to surrender your cat?

Rescues are full of incredible animals who just want love—and we’re here working unpaid hours covered in fur, p*e, and broken dreams to help them. So if you reach out, reach out with kindness, realism, and maybe… just a little less “hun” ❤️

Thanks for coming to our Ted Talk.

Now go hug your (real, beautiful, messy) cat.

Love,

The rescue humans 😽

09/07/2025

Got a colony of ferals that started as 1 or 2 cats and now there are 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, more? (delete as appropriate)
Need ferals trapping and neutering?
No problem just contact Consett Cat Rescue.
Would you be willing to donate a little something towards the costs involved to the rescue? Response is often - absolutely not, or stunned silence, or don't the vets do it for free? 🤦‍♀️
*sighs*

Current list of trapping jobs outstanding.

Tom cats around Elliott Way, Consett, stray, feral or owned? No idea but they are spraying all over a ladies home and she is fed up and has asked us to neuter them. We will of course scan any cats we do trap but if not chipped and we cannot find an owner, their bits are coming off.

Adult females on a farm at Burnhope - one done, one to go. Hopefully the land owner will catch it to save us doing the work. They found homes for the kittens.

Staindrop mother cat and kittens plus a tom cat. Tom cat now done but the mother cat went and gave birth and not sure where so back to trap her in next week or so hopefully.

2 adults and 4 kittens at Cockfield - hopefully now sorted courtesy of RSPCA Hub Darlington, but need to double check so I can take that off my list.

Sacriston scrap yard area. Mother and 4 kits now caught and "in custody" but there are several tom cats to find and trap. Job made harder as no females to attract them and it may be these tom cats are actually owned and live in the surrounding estates - come on people of Sacriston, neuter your flipping cats or ask us for vouchers if you cannot afford to.

Cats at a farm. at Rowley - all females now neutered, two tom cats still to do.

Farm at New Brancepeth - adult cats and kittens to trap. Farmer threatening to shoot them if they cause abortions in his sheep 🙄

Ferryhill - colony at Ferryhill to trap and neuter and return. Reports of poorly kittens and maybe a cat with a broken leg.

Langley Moor Cats. Reports of at least one adult and a litter of kittens in an area we have worked before earlier this year.

Butterknowle cats. Around 10 cats to trap, neuter, release but there are some two week old kittens and two 3-4 month old kittens who have been born with no eyes. Almost certainly down to inbreeding which goes on in feral colonies.

I think thats it. Only 9 different jobs. Some partially completed and only tom cats left to do. Always the stragglers who are the worst as takes longer to catch them and as you can see time is not something I have much of.

Almost every situation listed above was preventable if only the people had got in touch 3-4 months ago. Adults could have been caught and neutered. No kittens born.

We currently are back up to 110 cats on our books and certainly have zero space to take any more. But financially we would be on our knees if we were to carry on taking in as well as being unable to properly look after them all due to the sheer volume. I know my limits.

In the meantime every single day people ask us to take in their tame cats as they come up with every known excuse as to why they are giving them up. I think I've heard them all.
There will be some cases I have forgotten about by now and I'll only remember when the person gets back in touch - I may have promised to take in a single kitten once it was weaned and could neuter the adult or something - honestly I loose track the requests are so frequent.
The fact is all those jobs listed are going to cost us (and are costing us) a lot of money even with the excellent help we receive from our vets. In fact were it not for Darlington Vet Clinic we could not do even a third of what we have done this year. I just hope they can fit all these neuters in over the coming weeks.

All this on top of the day to day running of the rescue. No easy task. If anyone wanted to donate towards any of the above jobs, then did you know you can now set up a Facebook fundraiser. Just like the one I magically set up below.

08/07/2025

This shared post is all true.
I started the day (actually it was yesterday seeing as its past 1am and I'm still up) thinking right, I have a list of trapping jobs and with a bit of luck, the mani chunk of them (the mums and kittens anyway) can be done by end of next week.
However silly me.
One request in about ferals at Ferryhill (because yeah it's just around the corner right 🙄). Some of which are injured or poorly. I've advised the lady to contact RSPCA about the injured and sick ones as no chance I can get there until next week at the very earliest. Another lady I know who has already trapped and paid for a load in that area to be neutered is also going to help with these ones but again she cannot help till next week either.
Another request in from a lady whom we helped earlier this year, more ferals in her area. The good thing about that one is this lady was one of the most helpful people we have ever worked with for trapping. She kept an eye on traps and it meant we did not have to be present much at all except to take trapped ones to be neutered. She was even able to keep them overnight before releasing the next day. We need more people like her when we are asked to help because we cannot do this alone.
These feral trapping jobs are absolutely necessary to try and keep down the cat population (although I feel we are swimming against a bloody big tide here). BUT they cost us money. We make absolutely no money from doing farm cats, feral cats and the like - why because nobody wants to pay for unowned cats.

The cat world is in crisis. Rescues are full, rescuers are on their knees, cats are dying needlessly through being dumped and overbred etc. by selfish humans.

Do you want to help save a life? Yes? Then keep your cat that you gave a home to and have now decided is an inconvenience, give them the love and care you promised to give when you brought a cuddly kitten. Get your cat neutered whether male or female and help put a stop to the massive over population.

Actively help that stray cat that you have seen wandering around your neighbourhood (if a rescue hasn’t got space make sure there is food, water and shelter if possible plus get them on as many waiting lists as you can…)

People in rescue work tirelessly and get abuse for not helping, after all it’s ‘only just one more cat’ that we get told we ‘can’t be bothered to help’ - but that’s not the case is it? It’s a constant stream of ‘just one more cat’ and we are struggling more than you could ever imagine 😭

We cannot magic spaces out of thin air, we are doing our utmost to find homes for the ones we have but homes are becoming increasingly difficult to find (as there are too many cats), fundraising is becoming more and more difficult meaning it’s harder to afford food, vet bills etc.

If YOU want to help, spread the word about the state the cat world is in, actively remind people to neuter their cats, share rehoming posts, maybe do your own little fundraisers to help your local rescues.

HELP US TO CONTINUE HELPING THESE POOR CREATURES WHO ARE SUFFERING BECAUSE OF HUMANS.

We cannot do this alone….💚

*photo of Hillary who came in 2 days ago with 1 kitten, and her other 2 kittens have since been trapped and reunited with her*

06/07/2025

Just a heads up folks

A couple of things are changing regarding how this page is run. These are both a little trial to see if it helps admin who have a lot to do at the best of times and so hoping this helps them.

Firstly - many of the posts made on here will now have the commenting option limited. You can still like, love, be angry, be sad, laugh etc via the usual emojis but you will not be able to comment (unless you are mentioned). The reason - well its another Facebook quirk which seems to be to NOT send a notification to admin when there is a comment made. Most of the time it's fine but if people are asking a question, and we do not see it to respond to, then the person may think we are ignoring them. We are not, we genuinely have not seen it and apologies but we do not have time to go back and check every post. Anyway we will see how it pans out. People can of course send a message to the page inbox.

Secondly, messages will usually not be replied to late on an evening. Many people message the page at 10pm, 11pm and even through the night. I know we do not exactly work office hours as its not a 9-5 job but me personally, I like to try and be able to have my tea (thats usually around 7-8pm anyway as too much to do to have a normal teatime), and try and relax for an hour or so before last round of feeding, litter tray cleaning and meds and then bed.
I won't give an exact cut off time as that could vary and personally I'm a bu**er for hating ignoring folks but I am determined to try this. REMEMBER we are not an emergency service so we do not have to be here all hours of the day and night and yes some people seem to treat us like that at times. Again this is a trial to see if we can regain some semblance of a personal life.

Actually another thing has changed but that is Facebooks doing and is another irritating and fine example of how they mess about with the application but us users have no say and only realise it when things are "not as they were".
The Facebook thing seems to be odd (don't quote me on this as who knows if it is or not), but when I shared the last post into two of my groups, all that shared was the video and not the whole post. Annoying - very much so. Nobody would know what the video was about so I deleted those shared posts.

I will leave commenting on this post so folks can have their say on the trial.

05/07/2025

So what's happened in the last few days then?

No new requests for help (except the usual messages saying "can you rehome my cat" - they are 10 a penny these days and I don't think people realise how many folks give up their pets. Most animal lovers cannot comprehend doing that (me included). BUT we never know what is around the corner so......

I managed to take 3 queens from a farm and have them spayed. One was pregnant with 4 kittens taking our running total of kittens NOT being born this year to 57.
There is still a tom cat who lives there and a visiting tom whom I suspect comes from a nearby farm. I intend to try starting to catch the visiting tom this coming week (although I am super busy this next week so time is very limited for me) and of course the other tom who is tame enough to pick up and take to vets.
There are also 2 litters of kittens at the farm but the person who feeds them is refusing to allow a rescue to take them despite me finding rescue spaces for them. 😭😭😭

Good old Squid is finally reserved. I travelled with her today to meet with the daughter of the couple who are going to adopt her. She is going to live in Aberdeenshire next Friday and my husband and I will drive her up. Travel expenses are being paid for by the couple who are adopting her. I sort of met them on FaceTime today and they met Squid.
Being an all black female who has had a dental and is a scaredy cat, she was almost unadoptable so its refreshing to find there are folk out there wanting to give cats like her a chance.

I collected a bunch of plants today ready to have them all potted and nice to sell at our next event which is the fundraising day at SimplyCats Vet Clinic on Saturday 16th August. Several are cat friendly too so safe for your little fluffy darlings.

The four kittens in the cat basket got their first vacs this week and are getting early neutering done in 3 weeks time so will be ready for adoption by end of July.
The ginger boy is reserved but the other three (also all boys) are available. They are in foster care at present getting lots of handling. They are quite skittish so no homes with small children and need to preferably go to a home who either already has another cat or kitten (or just adopt two 🤷‍♀️).
I've attached a short video of them playing.
We currently have 19 kittens in foster care dotted about the NE and are potentially looking for a fosterer for a mum and four feral kittens.
Almost all kittens will be ready by end of August I imagine. I am allowing them to be reserved in advance BUT you have to go through the adoption process, read information sheets, complete a questionnaire and go meet the cats (and leave a deposit) but I am wondering if giving folk early access to them will make more people be interested in adopting them as they can follow their progress.
Sadly most of the kittens we have are black or black and white and that significantly decreases their chances as NOBODY looks at this colours first 😿
The photo of the three black and white boys (actually one is dark grey and white) are 3 out of 4 also in foster care with another fosterer. I hope to get their vacs sorted either this week or next week. Time permitting.
I'll likely think of more to say later but thats a good enough update for now.
Oh I've not forgotten other trapping job requests and will contact folk this coming week to maybe start a week on Sunday with the next lot (a farm near Durham needs sorting - more adults and kittens - so preventable *sighs*

OH - and as a new thing, no commenting is available on the post. Thats because people comment and I never get a notification so it's very rude I think not to reply.
People can of course inbox us if they wish to ask anything. I get message notifications

04/07/2025

NOTE

We are asked to deal with (neuter) ferals and strays on an almost daily basis.
Being a small rescue means we have to prioritise the jobs, pregnant or female cats take priority over tom cats.
What we do not have time to do is look around for owners if we trap a cat that is not neutered and not chipped.
We ask the finder to look for owners and trust they have done this.
So if you own an un-neutered cat and its not chipped (and thats mandatory now carrying a £500 fine if not chipped) then we will go ahead and neuter it once we trap it.
Because we have no space, we will neuter and release them (so if its an owned cat well you are getting a free neuter).
If we neuter an "owned" cat and the owner then gets in touch, we'll happily give you the bill for neutering him/her.
NOTE - this is only cats without a chip - if chipped we contact the owner immediately.
No chip means its assumed its abandoned.

01/07/2025

Sunday/Monday I think I was about to cry with all the requests coming in.
I think Tami listed most in her post in Stanley Cats Lost and Found group but here is a reminder plus the extra I got to add to the list. I also got the New Brancepeth one plus another one passed to me via Helping Pets NE as its more our area than theirs. There are around 12-13 cats/kittens on that case alone.
I'd also had a request from a housing officer about 18+ cats in a home in a dire situation where they needed to be removed and rehomed.
I'd also had 3 different people asking me to help where a cat had been abandoned after the owner had moved (three separate cases!!) and also help to sort out some tom cats in the area who are spraying everywhere as owners had not bothered to neuter them.
With 110 cats now on board (Tami managed to catch the stray and 3 kittens at South Moor, mentioned in her post) we need to take in some serious donations or we are in danger of going under or at least at a point where we only answer calls about adopting and completely ignore/block all other requests - and I would hate to do that.
I would ask other rescues if they can help with the 20+ kittens I know of that need a rescue space (we actually have 19 already here, never mind looking for spaces for another 20+), but I know all the good rescues I communicate with as as over flowing as we are.
We were doing great this year keeping intake to a minimum. Having only had 30 adoptions in the last 6 months, yet we've took in way more than 30, the figures are not heading in the right direction.
One statistic which may shock you is we have prevented 53 kittens being born this year - those are cases where we neutered a cat and she turned out to be pregnant. Usually ferals and status was unknown at the time, but there have been a couple who were pregnant and we chose to spay them anyway.
That may not be palatable but where would we have put 53 extra kittens!
It is absolutely not sustainable at all with so many already wanting homes to bring anymore into this world.
We are up to the letter K for naming the newbies this year. Sad fact - we still have last years K's, J's, H's, G's and more. And some of those letters from the year before last as well. I have list as long as my arm of cats that need their annual booster - yes we've had them so long, they are due a booster!
So yes we are full BUT I still want to get every cat I can neutered. If you have a stray or real turn up, ok so we cannot take it in but we can neuter it.
You have a cat thats had kittens, ok yes we really wish you had contacted us before this happened but better late than never so we will help, get those cats neutered, the world will be a better place.
I'm almost ready to draft a petition asking for neutering to be made mandatory. The last one of these was unsuccessful but no reason it cannot be started again. I hope you all sign it when its up and running because we need 1000s of signatures.
I've added a poster with discounted neutering costs available at Consett vets. BUT we can also do it even cheaper than that if you choose to use Darlington Vet Clinic at St Helen Auckland who provide us with a better deal so we can help more people. GET IN TOUCH - do not be shy

30/06/2025

Nancy cat dropped off here for her radio-iodine treatment.
We’ll see her probably in a weeks time.
This treatment is almost guaranteed to cure her hyperthyroidism meaning she could then be placed up for adoption once she is fully recovered.
Heading back to the NE next and then must decide which trapping jobs to contact first given 3 came in yesterday 😭.
Tami is already tackling one of them at South Moor, Stanley which ranks #1 in the place we find the most un-neutered cats roaming. Cat owners in that area need to give their heads a wobble if they own an un-neutered cat. We’ve been providing discounted neuter vouchers (for over 18 months now), providing vet transport and even taking them overnight to starve them for owners and yet still some people do not bother. I have to ask myself why do we bother at times because clearly some people do not care at all.
Another job is at a farm outside of Durham where they’d preferably like them gone from and in fact the cats are threatened with being shot if they cause abortions in their sheep.
The other trapping job is at a farm where we trapped 24 ferals back in October 2022. We still have some of those cats up for adoption.
Sadly it seems there are more cats and kittens there again.
Funds are not great at present so any donation from anyone towards all these cats we have to neuter is much appreciated.
Find us on Just giving, PayPal or bank transfer.

29/06/2025

This resonates so much with us. Because there are thousands of cats now in rescue, many like us are just so full. Yet you trap some who clearly would be very easy to tame or are in fact tame and people will say oh you will easily get them a home. Actually no not always, I'm sure folks thought that about the other 100+ we have in rescue already.
The reality is not enough folk are wanting to adopt right now and it's for a variety of reasons. If financial or lifestyle or whatever then yes, it's the right decision. People should always only adopt when they can afford and their lives are on track and stable etc.
What we try and do is literally neuter everything that moves on the basis of even though e cannot offer a rescue space, we can prevent more breeding.
Don't get angry if a rescue can only offer to neuter, accept that help and continue feeding your feral or stray. Worst thing you the public can do is absolutely nothing, leading to more and more breeding (and yes this means tom cats as well - it takes two you know)
Save a life, neuter your cat.

When You Can't Save Them All

I think this is one of the hardest parts of rescue. You see a cat in need and KNOW that if you took her in you could socialize her or help her get healthier or maybe even find her a good home.

I'm willing to bet that many of you reading this know of a cat that is hurting your heart right now because you can't help her. For me, it is this adolescent cat. She lives on acreage with about 15 other cats and is lucky to have a human who provides daily food. But her skinny 4 pound frame shows that she isn’t thriving.

Julie contacted us for help with TNR and after a few weeks trapping we "think" all the adult cats are fixed. In addition, about 16 kittens were removed and placed into foster care. But this young, semi-feral cat was returned. Only 8 months old, she had babies when she was only 6 months old. Raising kittens at that young age nearly killed her. She is terribly underweight from the ordeal. Still, two vets looked at her and said that, while very thin, she could go back. The first was three weeks ago when she was spayed. And the second was today when I had her rechecked after she went in a trap again. Viral negative and with no signs of injury or illness, she isn't a candidate for euthanasia. But nobody likes to return an underweight cat.

A wise rescue friend spoke the words I needed to hear. "She is far better off now than before she was spayed. You didn't make her life worse; you made it better. She is just going back to live the only life she knows." This friend knows that my foster space is full and understands how hard it is because it is difficult for her too. Still, it is hard to see a cat like this and not add one more. I know that if I kept her in a spare room for a few weeks, I could at least fatten her up. Is she a candidate for adoption? Probably not. There are millions of tame and friendly cats and kittens looking for homes right now. A cat who is scared of humans is not likely to find a home soon. And she lives in a great location for feral cats. A pond, outbuildings, covered deck and thick vegetation give her plenty of places to live a good cat life.

I'm sharing this story because every rescuer I know struggles with this. Nobody wants to return underweight cats or tame cats or kittens after TNR, but sometimes you have to. There is a limit to how many you can help and if you take on too many you may be causing harm. Mixing cats from different sites is challenging if one group is ill. And it is easy to slip up and accidentally allow that disease to spread to the other cats.

We don't like to leave sad stories in our reader's heads, so we want you to know that we will be following up with the feeder to make sure she is gaining weight. Food and medications for parasites will be provided and we are encouraging her to work on socializing her.

If you are feeling bad about the cats and kittens you can't save, remember this. If you have them spayed / neutered and vaccinated, they are infinitely better off than they were before. You made their life so much better! Most cats are healthier and gain weight after they aren't breeding any more. This is true for both genders. And it is okay to return them to the life they are used to living while you look for a better solution. For me, this means checking in with the feeder to make sure she is gaining weight. Who knows, maybe she will tame down and get into a foster home later this fall or winter when kitten season has slowed down.