Please clean ALL supplies used for fostering at least between litters. Whether or not your foster kittens have any signs of illness, you will want to be sure to thoroughly disinfect everything they have touched as well as everything that you may have touched after coming in contact with the kittens. This includes carriers, toys, beds, blankets, litter boxes, syringes, bottles etc. Disinfecting these items is a critical part of keeping your foster kittens safe and healthy! Disinfecting more frequently than between litters is ideal- some illnesses, such as coccidia, are able to re-infect kittens if the contaminants remain in the environment. If your kittens have any symptoms of illness or are RW+, we suggest disinfecting at least every few days.

It's pretty simple, really! If your resident pets are healthy and current on their vaccines, simple hygiene should be enough to keep them safe. The #1 most important thing is hand washing. Washing your hands with soap and hot water is the biggest step you can take in preventing the spread of any illness. If your foster kittens are ill in any way, we also recommend:

• Keep a pair of slip-on shoes in the room where your kittens are quarantined. Wear them while you're in the room, and leave them there when you're done; this prevents tracking out anything contagious on your shoes/feet.

• Change clothes between handling sick kittens and handling your resident pets. For example, keep a long-sleeved shirt in the room where your kittens are quarantined, and put it on to feed, medicate, and cuddle the kittens. Then, leave it in the room when you are done so that your clothes underneath are clean and you are ready to cuddle your resident pets and family members!

• Keep a spray bottle of diluted bleach handy. Spray down door knobs, light switches, and other frequently-touched surfaces weekly, if not daily. 

  • If you prefer an alternative to bleach, we recommend Rescue disinfectant. It is specially formulated for veterinary use, and is an extremely effective cleaner. It can be found at Walmart and on Amazon, among other places.

Not much, actually! APA! does recommend a thorough cleaning with bleach at least once per week while fostering RW+ kitties, to prevent re-infection. If you follow our standard cleaning protocol as listed above, your space should be RW-free in time for your next litter. While you can't foster RW+ and RW-free kittens at the same time, there is no mandated waiting period between your RW+ kittens leaving, and you bringing home RW-free kittens. 

In many cases, you are welcome to have 2 different groups of litters at a time and take in new kittens at any point (as long as proper quarantine procedures are followed, of course!) However, there are two illnesses that cause a mandatory wait period before taking home more kittens:

• Calicivirus can live in the environment for up to 2 weeks. Although we trust our fosters to clean thoroughly between litters, calici is serious enough that we aren't willing to risk it! You must wait 2 weeks after your foster kittens are cleared of calici (or leave your home) -- AND you have decontaminated -- before taking home more kittens.

• Panleukopenia can live in an environment for a really long time. Panleuk is one of the biggest causes of death in neonates, so we always err on the side of caution. If your house has been exposed to panleuk, you may not be able to foster any neonatal kittens for 6 months.