Students foster stray cat mom’s kittens when she is taken to vet, but upon her return she rejects her litter leaving students to raise and adopt, say: ‘They’re doing great and are super well socialized as a result of being raised by college students’

Author image for Laurent Shinar
Laurent Shinar • Writer and Editor
Apr 17, 2026 6:15 AM EDT

If you thought a group of college students would be too immature to rescue and care for a litter of kittens, this story stands to prove you wrong.

For when one of the stray cats on their campus had to leave the area for some vet treatment, this collection of college students noticed that a litter of kittens had been left behind. If left to their own devices one would assume these kittens would not last all too long, especially with their mother not nearby to protect them. So seeing the potential problem looming over these kittens, the students stepped in to help you. Each one taking on a kitten to care for secretly in their dorm room.

They did so in the hopes that when momma cat came back she would seek out her kittens and the fur family would be reunited. However, it seems that her treatment and time away caused her to move on in life and when she was presented with her kittens once more the allure of family life had worn off. The rest of the story we leave you to discover for yourself, but one truly wonders what would have happened to those kittens had those kind cat loving students not been there. 
 

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    "Their names are Spicy, Soy Sauce, Ranch, and Ramona"
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    A cat on my school's campus was captured and taken to the vet for a leg injury yesterday. She has 3 kittens who are about 4 weeks old we found them last night after she was already brought to the vet. Since
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    they're definitely still too small to survive on their own, some other students and I took them in while the mom is away. They've been doing well since we brought them in.
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    The mom is being returned to campus tonight - the vet did an x-ray of her leg and found that she's already recovering from a previous Sɩry (from before she appeared on our campus). Another SL... y would ン
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    require us to administer medicine to her for 1-2 months and that would be essentially impossible since she's so agy... ive, so the vet advised us to just let her continue healing on her own for now.
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    If reintroducing them to her is possible, how would we go about this? I know this is a really less-than-ideal situation all around. Any advice would be much appreciated.
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  • Well, we have to say it is rather refreshing to see such a group of young people step up to the plate and dish out some fresh responsibility. To take on three kittens is no small task for anyone, even the most experienced cat carer would think twice before putting that on themselves. So for a group of young go getters like them to decide that this would be the challenge they wanted to take upon themselves is rather valiant. Especially considering the plight of the poor cat mom. Those kittens are so darn lucky to have those hoomans helping them stay safe and cared for. 
     

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    EDIT: Thank you all so much for the input. We decided to leave them out for a short while to see if the mom will take them back. If she does, we will continue monitoring them over the next
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    few months, and hopefully get all of them more used to people gradually (since they live right near the dorms). If the kittens are still unattended by early tomorrow morning (currently almost
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    midnight here) though, we'll take them back inside and continue fostering them ourselves. A few things: taking the mom in as well is unfortunately not
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    possible for us, we're a group of students living on campus and cats aren't allowed in the dorms, so keeping the kittens without catching the attention of the
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    guards is already difficult. Since the mom is so agy ve, I don't think it would be possible for us to get her inside the dorms unnoticed at all, much less keep her in there for a
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  • Wow, these are some hardcore college cat lovers right here. Though that being said, part of the reason these kids might be caring for these kittens is because they get to break the rules and in doing so, stick it to the man. It is funny with kids, you can get them to do the most outlandish things so long as you say that it is not permitted. But what is most important is that these kittens are not abandoned outdoors all alone, that is when the true trouble starts. 
     

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    long period of time. Our dorms are single bedrooms with communal bathrooms to give you a better idea of what we're working with. Finding suitable fosters is also tough
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    because we live in a country with very underdeveloped animal welfare laws, and public awareness for animal welfare is generally low. Fostering feral cats is very uncommon
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    here. Our campus has about 40 strays and we have a student organization (which I'm a part of) that works to get as many as possible fostered/adopted, but it's a slow process in general.
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    I appreciate all the resources and advice you've provided and will update tomorrow!
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    2 BO " Q W E R T Y U I о P } delete A S D cap lock F G H K L : return Z x C v r control option command M r command option
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    A few updates on the stray kittens on my campus: 1. We found a fourth! He turned up in roughly the same area about 9 hours
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    after we found the other three. He may look different from the other three color-wise, but there's no doubt they're from the same litter.
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    e
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    2. We did attempt to reintroduce them to the mom cat. She took them back that same night and was spotted with them two separate times throughout the
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    night (she left and came back at least once); however, the next day she left in the morning and didn't come back at all. We gave her time, but by the early
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    SBA
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    evening they were hungry and dirty so we took them back inside for good. This is their second full day inside and they're doing great :) adjusted to indoor life very
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    already gaining weight. We're keeping an eye out for the mom just to make sure she's okay, but we have no plans to try reintroducing them again. We'll continue raising them ourselves for now
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    and then will hopefully find adopters (or at least fosters with more room to keep them) once they're old enough. Thanks again to everyone who gave advice.
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    Thankfully we somehow didn't screw up too badly and they're doing great now (and are naturally super well socialized as a result of being raised by a bunch of college students, LOL).
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    Their names are Spicy, Soy Sauce, Ranch, and Ramona (formerly Barbecue but I renamed her once I decided to adopt her haha).
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stray cats cat mom students cat adoption foster rejection reddit story raise cat story vet cute kittens litter
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