A south Shropshire cat charity has been forced to close its doors to abandoned felines temporarily – because caring for 16 homeless and poorly cats who were all rescued together has cost it more than £2,000 in vet bills.
This week Rose Cottage Cat Rescue, Bushmoor, said the charity won’t be able to accept any more unwanted cats until until July, at the earliest.
The rescue centre took in the 16 cats from one home in March – a massive undertaking for a small charity.
The cats were not neutered, were infested, some had cat flu and others needed eye and tail surgery. Eight have already been rehomed and the others are all now doing well. But vet bills hammered the charity’s finances.
Sarah Wells, who runs Rose Cottage, said: “A majority of the work was done in March with the bill at £1,500, so the cost is probably around £2,000. That’s a lot of money and at a time when it’s harder to get money.
“People don’t have as much money in their pockets and they can only give what they can afford. So the credit crunch has hit us.
“But these cats needed to be taken in and I suspect that other charities would have put them to sleep. It’s great now to see the cats doing so well now.
“All this has come at a tremendous costs and this massive rescue has used up all our resources. As a result we have had to take the difficult decision to close the rescue cattery to incoming cats until we have rehomed some of these cats and built our funds back up.
“It is never easy to say no to cats in need of help but we cannot take in cats we cannot afford to care for.”
The next fundraising event for Rose Cottage will be a jumble sale on May 16 at Church Stretton Parish Centre.
