Six tiny kittens have been dumped in a box on the side of a road in west Wales. The male ginger kittens were found running around on a rural lane in the Mynyddcerrig area, a few miles from Pontyberem in Carmarthenshire.
They are all around nine weeks old, and had to be picked up by a member of the public who had discovered them wandering around on the road. You can keep up to date with the latest Carmarthenshire news by signing up to the local newsletter here.
The cats had made their way out of a box which someone had left in the area before abandoning them. They have now been handed over to RSPCA Cymru staff at the Llys Nini Animal Centre in Penllergaer in Swansea, where they will be vaccinated and neutered before being made available for rehoming.
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“These poor kittens appear to have been just dumped like rubbish on the side of the road,” said RSPCA animal rescue officer Rohan Barker, who revealed that staff have named the kittens Peanut, Bumble, Carrot, Jaffa, Nemo and Rusty.
"The person who found them said the kittens were running around on the road, but they managed to scoop them up and take them home safely. Luckily these kittens were not injured and were found before anything serious happened to them.”
The RSPCA is appealing for anyone with information about the kittens - who were dumped and abandoned on Sunday, July 10 - to get in contact with them by calling their appeal line on 0300 123 8018.
According to the RSPCA, the disturbing find in Mynyddcerrig is sadly typical of some of the jobs frontline officers are faced with, particularly during the summer months. Reports of beatings, shootings, abandonments and poisonings rise over the summer, a fact which has prompted the charity to launch a Cancel out Cruelty campaign.
The charity receives around 90,000 calls to its cruelty line every month and investigates 6,000 reports of deliberate animal cruelty. However, during July and August, calls rise to 134,000 a month.
The charity has urged owners to have their cats neutered from as early as four months old to avoid unwanted litters ending up in their rescue centres. They have reminded people that cats can become pregnant from that age, meaning an unexpected litter can often come as a shock to owners who do not wish to care for a number of young kittens.
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