Cats and Kittens for Free or Sale

Cats and Kittens for free or Sale - Girl cat Vic - photo by by fofurasfelinas

The cat in the photograph above is a "mixed breed rescue cat". She is shy and nervous but a very loving cat. She is beautiful too. Could you ask for more? This cat is the kind of cat that gets euthanized over 2 million times every year in the USA. She was rescued by the photographer. after the first carer wasn't able to help, sadly.

This post is long but meant to be a comprehensive article and a good starting point on this subject with links (leading to lots more links and great photos), plus some thoughts and ideas on the subject of Cats and Kittens for free or Sale. Searching cold on the internet for this search term throws up a disjointed array of Google search items. This page is meant to be a little more coordinated.

Cats and Kittens for Free or Sale - Cat breeders.... will be the prime source for purebred cats or kitten for sale. Most often they sell kittens but sometimes adult cats for a number of reasons but relatively rarely. An example might be a dwarf cat that has all the characteristics of a dwarf cat breed (Bambino, for example) but has normal length legs. This will happen due to the nature of the genetics in the breeding program of dwarf cats. Few people will want a dwarf cat that is not dwarfed so the breeder will sell this kitten at a good rate.

There is no excuse in my book for a kitten from a cat breeder to be anything but in good rude health and well socialized. Yet some aren't (but the majority of breeder catteries will be OK to very good). The health of the kitten is the number one concern, obviously. What I mean is long term health or what might be described as underlying health. A kitten that is healthy or that looks healthy at handover may not be robust or may have a predisposition to a certain illness (see for example genetically linked diseases). A buyer should always go and visit the breeder's premises to check on the basics such as cleanliness, tidiness and general organization. And to ask questions face to face.

Personal recommendation of a breeding cattery is the best way but this may not be possible. Here are some suggestions on finding a good cattery:

---Go to the individual pages of each breed on this site. They contain, at the bottom of the page a list of catteries from a Google search. The best catteries are listed on these pages.

---Your local veterinarian may be able to assist. Cat breeders need vets and vets will know cat breeders therefore.

---in the UK catteries have to be registered with the local authority. The same probably applies in the States and other countries. They may be able to assist and even give a clue as to the good and bad ones.

---Ringing around after finding some in the local phone book or internet search. A phone call can give some good clues as to the efficiency of a cattery. It's a goos first filter but by far from certain.

---Inspection. I've mentioned this above.


This is just a great picture of two kittens/cats who are close to each other. The photographer has given permission for this to be published under a creative commons license. This is a very popular photo and rightly so. Photo by by Ferran. (this link takes you to the photographers home page at Flickr).


On this website I have built many pages on all the domestic cat breeds and addressed the issue of health on each one (use the navbar links on the left of this post to find the breeds, a lot of them are covered, almost all. You'll see the best pictures of the best cats of that breed). It can be difficult to find information about purebred cat health as breeders will (quite rightly from their perspective) keep health problems private as they are in a business. One commonly recurring issue that affects purebred cat health and which should be in the minds of people considering looking for cats or kittens for free or sale is the relatively high level of inbreeding needed in purebred cat breeding to find, develop and fix the correct appearance of the breed in question . Cat breeders have to inbreed. The question is how much? Too much and you get health issues which plague the breed. Too little and you get cats that look more like mixed breed cats. It's a fine balance.

Breeders are driven firstly by success in the appearance of their cats, in my view. This success comes from success at cat shows, which in turn comes from judges picking their cats above others and declaring them champions. When a judge does that he/she will be comparing the cat's appearance with the breed standard, which is a fairly open ended description of what the cat should look like. He will also check the cat for character.

A win at a cat show sets the cattery apart and makes the business more profitable and it also give great pleasure to the cat breeder. This drive to produce the perfect appearance can in my opinion (but not that often) lead the cat breeder to lose touch with the main objective, to produce healthy kittens. Sometimes early foundation cats can bring a genetic defect to a large part of the entire breeding program. I'd watch for that. You can read the individual pages of each cat breed on the website to look for this. Each page has (or should have!) a health issues section. Some of the most popular breeds like the Siamese (the most popular probably), the Bengal cat, Maine Coons and Persians have certain health issues. These are just example.





A large majority of people agree with me that good health affects them when selecting cats and kittens for free or sale. This is important in a choice of a purebred cat breed (see chart above). And some breeds are more healthy than others. As I have spent so much time digging around looking for health issues why not benefit from that and visit the cat breed pages? You can start here.

Not many people actually buy a purebred cat (at least in comparison to mixed-breed cats). Say about (this is my guess) 10% of the total of all domestic cats living with people are purebred (USA figure). This is because of cost mainly. The differences between a purebred cat and a mixed breed cat are:

---health. Desmond Morris a fine and distinguished zoologist, ethologist, surrealist artist and author says that purebred cats can be less healthy than moggies. My own research in building the pictures-of-cats.org website indicates that this is generally true for the reason mentioned above (inbreeding).

---appearance. Purebreds have a distinctive appearance but the appearance is not necessarily any better than that of a moggie mixed breed. Click on the link to take a look at the mixed breed page on my website and you'll see what I mean. Or simply have a look at this short video of mixed breed cats:


Cats and Kittens for free or Sale - These fantastic photos are all by the great cat photographer Helmi Flick. She's the best.

OK time to have a look at some cats. I'd start with the pictures of the cat breeds in a list. I have compiled an alphabetic list of the cat breeds. Click on the link to start at cat breeds A-H.

Cats and Kittens for free or Sale - Purebred rescue centers..... are another surprising source of purebred cats. These cats are not free as rescue centers make a charge but it will be substantially lower than a breeder and be designed to cover costs (in the order of $100 or so).

The rescue of purebred cats is rather "fragmented" meaning not coordinated centrally (which in an ideal world would be a good idea) but there are some great rescue operations out there. But where are they? I'd definitely start by clicking in this link: Purebred Cat Rescue. You'll see that there are several "outlets" or routes to finding purebred cats that have been rescued one of which is through Yahoo Groups. The purebred rescue page takes you to a list of them. This lpage also takes you to bred specific rescue centers.

There are also links to rescue centers on some of the cat breed pages. So it you fancy a specific breed of cat you might see links to rescue on that page. Norwegian Forest cats and Abyssinian cats come readily to mind but there are many others. You can use the links in the Navbar margin on the left for links to all the cat breeds.

If I was intent on adopting a purebred cat I'd start with purebred cat rescue. It would take a bit longer and require more effort (e.g. some centers don't ship so a visit will be needed which is a good idea anyway) but the longterm rewards are higher in my opinion.


Another fine photograph of a "Distrustful cat" - photo by paolocaruso This photo is published with the photographers express permission.


Cats and Kittens for Free or Sale - Family or Private ad hoc breeding....is another source. Sometimes neighbors keep cats that are not spayed or neutered. This is considered irresponsible today as there are far too many cats killed (euthanized is a kinder word but it may not always be an accurate word - click on this link to see why). But we can step in an adopt one of these kittens that shouldn't really have been born. My first cat was one such cat and she was the most beautiful, loving and athletic cat you could imagine. She died in a car accident (my fault) and I still cry for her. Anyway we can all step in under these circumstances. These cats really are free except for the cost of a lifetime of care but this is repaid plus interest.

Cats and Kittens for Free or Sale - Ordinary rescue centers.....there are many of these, far too many and across the land in the USA about 2,200,000 of rescued cats are euthanized each year (or killed) in rescue centers. The difference between euthanazia and killing is this. When a cat is euthanized it is meant to be a death that is painless and without stress. When a cat is killed the painless and stressless aspect is ignored and the only objective is the death of the cat.

It is easy to find these centers and I have made up a list (yet). It is an old cliché but ordinary rescue cats are the best bet for a number of reasons:

---Many are euthanized as mentioned. We can save a life
---In saving a life the bond will be greater. The bond between cat and humans is the most rewarding part of keeping a cat
---We get used to the looks (the appearance) and even if our cats are not attractive if the bond is good and the cats character reasonably balanced she/he becomes beautiful in our eyes.


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Cats and Kittens for Free or Sale - Source:

• Myself