We are inspired by an amazing lady called Betty Launchbury who is now in her 80’s. Bet has been doing rescue work for nearly all her life and still does now, but as it comes to us all, age stopped her doing the physical things, that was ten years ago. We have come together over the last few years, our goals for animal welfare so like minded we have continued to work together. Our mission takes up most of our time; we eat, sleep and dream cats. Together we are the cat police going out rescuing off the streets any time day or night, we are not a nine to five rescue. Over the last few years we have happily gained help with the mission all at Southcrest Vets and Vets4Pets Stectchford have been a massive support. They fit us in for appointments at the drop of a hat and deal with our feisty and unfortunately sometimes smelly ferals without complaint, we are eternally grateful for all you do. We have also gained new support and helpers like Sewellyn and Maureen our fantastic cake ladies, Deb & Jayne our home checkers, Mary, Natalie and Gill whose amazing support we could not do without. We have also gained new trappers Lorraine and Mark who’s tireless efforts have helped many cats and kittens in the Birmingham area.
Redditch Cat Rescue is a small local charity/not for profit group, entirely run by volunteers although we do not physically have the space unfortunately to be a sanctuary, we do have some cats for rehoming. We cover Redditch and some areas in Birmingham.
There are hundreds of stray and abandoned cats living on our streets trying to fend for themselves, they are frightened, lonely and hungry. Often they have been injured by other cats, dogs and sometimes people. We are a voluntary rescue group who endeavour to trap, neuter and rehome as many of these cats as we can, promote neutering/spaying and try to educate people on the importance of neutering, helping people to neuter/spay if they are in financial difficulty.
Neutering cats is not only the best method of controlling the numbers that are abandoned or just lost after wondering to far from home, but it is also better for their health in general. If these cats are feral and not able to be homed they are returned or relocated to an environment where we are sure they will be fed and have access to a warm dry place to shelter. Cats that are friendly we endeavour to find a loving home for, all of these cats are taken to the vet for a check up, treated, vaccinated and neutered/spayed as well as wormed and treated for fleas. We do not put cats to sleep unless there is no hope of recovery and therefore kinder for them. Cats that we rehome are often from terrible backgrounds they are sometimes very ill and malnourished so we treat, feed them up, rehabilitate and socialise them ready for their new home. We go out to help these cats seven days a week and it often takes all day, sometimes late into the night as unfortunately they are not the most predictable of animals. Cats Protection give us a few vouchers but  the majority of our funds comes from donations, table top and boot sales and fundraising events, these as you can imagine are really hard work but we have a small band of people who help us and without their support we would struggle even more to achieve all we do.
We are part of the Trap Neuter Release programme, and try to educate people that the cats are not to be viewed as a nuisance and once neutered, they will not fight with neighbourhood cats, they will cease spraying to mark their territory and their numbers will no longer increase. We are also looking for new homes for feral colonies that have to be moved from their sites because they are no longer welcomed or it has become too dangerous for them to stay, if you have stables, small holdings, out buildings or even gardens or if you loves cats but are allergic and feel you can help to give a feral colony or even just a couple of ferals a new home please contact any of us by phone or email.
Thank You! Once these cats have been delivered to their new homes, they are confined to a holding pen containing beds, litter trays and food and water for 2 to 3 weeks, this is essential or they would just run away. Once released, the cats return for their daily feeds. An added attraction is that feral cats earn their keep controlling rodents on farms and stables, they are also very entertaining and sometimes come around to be quite fussy.