If the kittens are sick or injured, or, after 12 – 14 hours you have determined the mother cat will not return, you can pick them up and opt to become their surrogate caretaker. Shelters and rescues are often inundated every spring and summer with well meaning people bringing kittens into the shelter, but they often do not have staffing or resources to help. The best thing you can do if you decide to take neonatal kittens from outside is become their caretaker until they are old enough to be spayed/neutered/vaccinated and adopted. If you do attempt to feed any kittens, do not feed cow’s milk – you must use special kitten milk called Kitten Milk Replacer. Before you feed them, be sure that the kittens are warm. If they’re cold and look hungry, warm up the kitten first or they could face life-threatening complications. Newborn kittens are fragile and require very specific care in order to ensure their survival. Before taking kittens from outside, we encourage you to do your research and visit the resources below. The Fredericksburg SPCA is not currently set up with a Kitten Nursery, however, we are working towards being able to offer resources to those who decide to rescue kittens from outside. We get hundreds of intake requests, so while we may not be able to intake a kitten at a certain time, we have compiled a robust list of resources and are happy to provide what we can. When we are able to intake kittens, we encourage those who take kittens in from outside to sign up as a foster, and offer to care for the kittens until they are old enough for adoption, or can be placed in another foster. We are able to provide supplies, as well as support when we have dedicated foster homes to place an animal in.