What are Pop Up Cat Breeders?
What you need to know before you buy a kitten in 2023. In 2021-2022 online pet scammers were the primary concern consumers had to watch out for when purchasing a kitten online. Now here in 2023, a frightening new hurdle has emerged. They are known as “Pop-Up Cat Breeders,” a person who has acquired an intact male and female cat and use them as a side hustle. They create a Facebook page or small website and state they have been in business for 10-20 years or more.
Pop-up cat breeders know nothing about the cats they are breeding, nor do they care. They are in it for some quick money and will be gone in a year or two, sometimes less. These cats are often kept in basements or garages. Some even purchased from the Amish, then flipped on the Internet. They don’t administer any vaccinations or conduct any tests on them. They are fed the lowest quality food money can buy. What does this all mean for the kittens and the buyer? A very poor start in life, lots of vet bills, and in many cases, a dead cat shortly after receiving them.
Unknowingly, someone falls in love with a picture of a kitten, not knowing that the website has only been up for a year or less. After all, it says 10+ years. How are you to know the “cat breeder” knows nothing about the cats of their breeding? Facebook and Google have become entirely saturated with these pop-up cat breeders, here today, gone tomorrow. You will also see pop-up breeders sponsoring their websites in Google which will position them at the top. However, Facebook is where these pop-up breeders thrive most. You will drop from one rabbit hole to the next until you send money to one of them and hope for the best.
We veteran breeders are now getting inundated with calls & questions about sick kittens and if we have ever heard of the ruthless people breeding them.
This has been a real problem since covid and getting worse every day. Pop-up breeders leave behind a string of unanswered puzzles, broken hearts, and loads of vet bills.
As a result of these events, a horrific outbreak of feline leukemia has broken out in one of these so-called catteries. The first outbreak was in a Florida cattery. The breeder sold many kittens with breeding rights to multiple other catteries throughout the United States. Shortly after the story made national headlines, feline leukemia was on the rise in Texas and California. This is a result of breeding cats you know nothing about and stud breeding an infected animal because the all-mighty dollar is more important than morals. Feline leukemia is fatal and will most likely be the death of any cattery program. We kindly ask if you have purchased a kitten from any breeder off the Internet (especially Facebook) and it has died from ANYTHING. Please be honest and tell us before proceeding.