Why I Should NEVER Take Newborn Kittens to the Shelter!
The shelter is almost certainly a death sentence for litters of newborn kittens.
Most governmental kill-shelters are not equipped with the 24-hour caretakers necessary to keep these delicate baby animals alive. Since they require a lot of time and energy to raise, they are usually euthanized before they get a chance to prove their worth.
why newborns get euthanized:
1) They require a lot of time, money, and energy to be kept alive with the 24 hour care they need, and it simply costs shelters less to euthanize them, than to raise them.
2) Neonatal kittens need people trained with the knowledge needed to keep them alive, and specialized resources that shelters don't have available (like heating pads for every single neonatal kitten), so they euthanize them.
3) They take up "precious" space, as shelters rely on every kennel they have available to take in animals that can be recycled out of the system and into a home, kittens under the age of 8 weeks cannot be adopted yet, so instead of waiting for them to reach 8 weeks, they euthanize them to make space.
4) Most kittens won't survive in the shelter setting (exposure to many potential diseases), especially if they come in with a weak immune system, so, the shelters euthanize them.