Some things that may help is making sure you have a blanket that with the breeders house scent on in, if your mom is going to look, get her to bring the blanket so it can be in with the litter, if the breeder will allow. A familiar scent may be calming. You can check out something like feliway spray which may help a bit too. Good luck on your voyage!

yeah it may help a bit, the bigger thing is her having something that smells like her mom and brothers/sisters to remind her of home and a comfortable place. I've heard a lot of people saying they did this, even when taking them on short trips home, to help them settle a bit better once they get home. (no first hand experience, sorry...still waiting on my kittens, they come home march 8th!)

also not sure on those treats if they work or not, no experience with them, our dogs had a short trip home so we never used anything on them.

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The idea of going down a day early is great! If she has a favorite toy (I know some breeders send the favorite with the kitty) then that could go in the carrier also, but if not and you take a few with you and are there a day early she might have time to really favor one in particular.

I know all mine love furry fabric like dressing gowns, if you could get a small bit of it from somewhere and put that it in it might help, mine just knead it like crazy and purrrr purrr purrr when they are on it. If your mother has an old one maybe you could cut a square of it but if not you should be able to get some at a fabric store.

to the OP:
can you find/design the sound proof large carrier , so its less noisy for her and not too small ?

There is Feliway spray that may help. Im not sure whether its ok for such a youing age though.

Toys in the carrier - I am afraid she will be so scared there that she wont be thinking of playing or eating.

I also fear for this kitten and it breaks my heart. I dont understand how people can think of saving money on the welfare of a kitten. unfortunately it does happen, and poor kittens suffer ..

The only way that I can think of to try to minimise stress levels for this poor kitten is sedation for the 7 hours she will be alone in the luggage car if that would be possible.

Personally I don't agree with transporting animals as luggage in either a plane hold or a trains luggage carriage. The only reason I can see for taking any pet on a plane is if there is an ocean in the way and then I would only do so if the animal was allowed in the cabin with me/ whoever was traveling with said animal, otherwise finding a way of traveling via car would be the only method I would consider. One member on this forum did in fact deliberately drive across a large area of the US to minimise the stress for their Bengals! Cost is secondary to the animals welfare and there is no way I would ever sell a kitten to anyone who would allow him/her to be put in a luggage car or plane hold alone for any length of time let alone 7 hours. That level of stress could potentially trigger you kitten into developing FIP which is fatal

You keep saying that because you have bought your train ticket you will just do this anyway and tough luck for the kitten if it is terrified but I see no reason why you have to take the kitten, you were already going to visit your mother so it's not like this trip was specifically to collect your kitten. Why can't you just arrange something else for the kitten and develop a more thought out, kitten friendly plan that will actually be better for the kitten not your wallet? I do tend to agree with others that your attitude of 'no I won't spend more to make my new kitten as comfortable and stress free as possible' to be worrying, it gives the impression that you would also put money before your kittens welfare in other areas such as veterinary treatment.

Your friends may see nothing wrong with your idea, many people may think it's fine but the people on this forum are passionate about cats (and other animals) and unlike a lot of people they put their animals on an equal setting to themselves and care and respect their pets as living creatures not possessions. Very few members will condone allowing a tiny kitten to suffer for the sake of saving money, and no we are not all millionaires, we just do everything in our power to ensure that we can financially support our pets adequately even if this means sacrifices in other areas of our lives.

The fact that there are no kittens closer to our area has a lot to do with this. When I was looking I found two breeders that were closer, neither of them were screening for HCM, and although they were closer there would still have been hours of travel involved.

Although it's not as much of an issue for those with cars the travel is still an issue for many people here. It seems breeders prefer to live in areas out of the cities (with good reason).

Ontario is Canada's second largest province, covering more than one million square kilometres (415,000 square miles) - an area larger than France and Spain combined.


Its not the cost, it's the logistics of it. Asking a friend to drive? That'd pretty well have to be a friend with benifits lol. Most people have jobs, families of their own and other responsibilities and although they might love to help asking them to take us on an overnight trip is a bit much.

I think that shipping of kittens is much more common over here in Canada than it is in England due to the sheer size difference of our Countries. Almost every breeders website states that they ship kittens.

I realize that no one is going to change their opinion and I wish for myself that I could just get someone to drive me down, stay in a hotel overnight (and that would be just another stress I imagine) and then drive back but I can't. I do worry about the plane trip but it's being done all the time and I doubt that all the breeders would be shipping if it was that bad for the kittens. And these are good breeders with all the right stuff in the contracts but they understand the difficulties in getting to them.


We are only talking about a trip of 278 miles for the kitten. There's a good possibility it'll sleep once its in the train.