Our Work
History:
Oldham Cats was founded in 1996 by the joining of two cat rescue groups in the Oldham Area. We became a registered charity in October 1996 (no:1058621). At this time we were operating from our volunteers’ homes, this was not ideal for either us or the cats so we searched for suitable premises.
In February 1997 the RSPCA in Oldham had closed down due to lack of funds so we rented the cattery from them. In August 1998 the RSPCA had raised enough money to move back in, so we started once more to search for suitable premises.
A supporter of Oldham Cats knew of a building that had been a boarding cattery until the owner had died, we contacted the landlord and were allowed to rent the building for our rescue. Work began on our new building, tidying, painting, wiring, plumbing and more needed to be done. Oldham Cats moved to Middleton on August Bank Holiday weekend 1998.
Our new cattery is ideal and, even though we pay a nominal rent, we have been allowed to overflow into most of our kind landlord’s garden. Since moving in we have adapted the room next to the cattery into a kitten room and added 3 outside catteries, all with heated rooms and large outside runs where groups of cats can live. Thanks to our dedicated volunteers Oldham Cats goes from strength to strength, and we're able to help more cats every year.
Our Policies:
Oldham Cats exists to rescue, neuter and rehome unwanted cats and kittens. We take in every animal we have room for and so we're pretty much always full. By neutering every animal before rehoming we hope to try and reduce the number of unwanted pets, but there are always more than we can find room for. We operate a no-kill policy, animals stay in our care until we find them a home, we will never have a healthy animal put to sleep. The only occasions when we will have cats put to sleep are if they are ill and suffering with no chance of recovery.
If we have cats in our care for a long time they will probably become residents. Our cattery cages are spacious but if a cat had to stay in one for a very long time then he or she would be likely to become depressed so we let them out to be resident cats. These cats have the freedom to go outside and play in the fields and gardens around the cattery, we are far from roads and other houses so they are totally safe and happy. The main cattery and our office are filled with cat beds, toys and food bowls so the residents have plenty of places to snooze and never want for human company! Most of these cats will find homes relatively soon, many who appeared shy in cages will come out of their shells when they're allowed some freedom. Those who cannot be homed will stay with us forever. Usually these are cats with long term health or behavioural problems or very old cats, more details about them can be found in the sponsorship section of the website.
Everyone at Oldham Cats knows that the happiness and care of our animals is our top priority. All our staff are volunteers who give up their valuable time to enable us to do what we do. There are volunteers caring for the cats every single day of the year, we don't get Christmas holidays, the animals still need caring for! Seeing cats we have rescued go to loving new homes, perhaps after them being mistreated or requiring veterinary treatment and care, makes it all worthwhile.
We get no government money to help us with our work, we rely entirely on donations from kind members of the public and every single penny goes straight to the animals. Membership and sponsorship forms can be downloaded from this site.