Cat rescue: ‘It was the worst sound’: Sydney woman’s horror over contents of plastic shopping bag

Jade, a local Sydney resident, was taking an afternoon walk on Park Road in Riverstone, NSW, when she heard screeching noises coming from a distance.

‘There are no houses across the road, it’s just forest. I just heard this crying sounds,” she told nine.com.au.

“At first it was soft and I thought it might be an injured bird. Then I kept walking and the screaming got louder and louder. To be honest, it was the worst sound.”

Jade proceeded carefully, looking through the undergrowth for the source of the terrible sound. It was then that she saw a black plastic bag that was tied tightly.

Watch the video above.

“I thought, ‘Surely there’s nothing in that bag.’ Then I grabbed a stick and moved the bag. The whole bag started moving.”

Then the screams became louder.

Jade carefully opened the bag and saw what looked like “a small animal inside”. She wasn’t sure what it was at first.

“I saw it was some kind of baby animal, a kitten or a puppy.”

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Jade grabbed the bag and ran home with it and when she opened it, she saw not one, but two little newborn kittens.

“They were still wet and freezing,” she said. ‘Their eyes were not open yet. I knew they were very, very young.”

Jade knew they desperately needed help. She grabbed a cardboard box and quickly Googled instructions to find out what to do.

“It said they can’t regulate their own temperature, so the first thing to do is make sure they’re warm. I warmed up a water bottle, wrapped it in some blankets and put it in a laundry basket.”

Once warm they had to be fed.

“I was just about to give them milk from my fridge but it said not to give them cow’s milk so I went to the local IGA to get kitten milk.

“Luckily I had a little medicine syringe and I heated up the milk and just tried to squirt it into their mouths.”

One kitten immediately swallowed the milk, but the other kitten spit most of it out.

Jade also read that they needed to be fed every two to three hours, so she waxed them and did just that.

“When I came into the laundry in the morning and I heard them crying, it was such a feeling of relief that they were still alive. Now I had to figure out what to do with them.”

Jade called several animal organizations, but it was Sunday and she wasn’t having much luck. That was until the seventh call, when she was put in touch with Hills Cat Rescue.

They agreed to help the kittens and reassured Jade that they would be safe. 

Jade said she is glad the kittens had each other during such a horrific time.

“They are such fighters. I’m glad they had each other. Even when I fed them, they cried as soon as I took one from the other.

“Once I put them down, they just cuddled up and fell asleep right away.”

Cindy Easterbrook from Hills Cat Rescue told nine.com.au that a total of seven new kittens came into the rescue organization’s care on Sunday – including the two neonatal kittens from Riverstone and five from Blacktown Animal Rehoming Center (BARC).

She estimates that the newborn kittens from Riverstone are only a few days old, and she wasn’t surprised when they revealed themselves to Jade.

“Neonatal children can get very loud,” she said.

The fluffy duo is now safely in her care and enjoying the warmth of an incubator.

In a message to others who may be in a similar situation, Easterbrook said there are three things kittens need when they are so young: warmth, glucose and moisture.

“The first thing is to get them warm, and luckily Jade had gone online and googled what to do and it all worked out fine,” Easterbrook said.

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Once it’s warm, you can rub some glucose on the kitten’s gums to “get some energy into them.”

This can be made by dissolving sugar in water.

Next, they need fluids. Initially, any kitten milk from the supermarket will suffice, but as soon as possible they need the right kitten food from a pet store.

Hills Cat Rescue works with a dedicated team of volunteer foster carers trained in neonatal care.

The two Riverstone kittens will be placed with a foster family, as will the five additional kittens from BARC, but the latter will be at least six weeks old and ready to be weaned.

In the case of the kittens Jade found, they had clearly been taken from their mother and dumped. But if you come across a very young litter of kittens, it is best to leave them in their mother’s care until they are six weeks old.

“You leave them and let her raise them,” Easterbrook said.

“And then when they’re about the right age, about six weeks old, when you can just handle them, and they’re just weaned, then you take them to daycare and mom to daycare and you desex the mother and the kittens.”

At this stage, kittens need lots of human love, affection and play to prepare them for meeting potential families

The mother is normally released into the area where she lives, and the kittens will eventually be rehomed.

Hills Cat Rescue has set up a donation page to help pay for the kittens’ care, with all contributions tax-deductible.

All kittens and cats ready for rehoming are listed on their website Facebook page and on their website Hills Cat Rescue.

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