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After five years of taking in cats and kittens from across Colorado and surrounding states, a rescue has officially found its first unicorn.
An extremely rare male calico kitten born in a Weld County shed earlier this year was later turned over to the Weld County Humane Society and, ultimately, transferred into the care of NoCo Kitties, a foster-focused rescue based in Loveland, according to founder Davida Dupont.
Loveland is about 45 miles north of Denver.
The kitten’s foster mom, NoCo Kitties volunteer Alli Magish, took in the little calico cat, his mom, Amber, and his four siblings, including his two calico sisters. Magish said she suspected he was a boy shortly after getting the litter but wanted to be sure – males make up just one of every 3,000 calico births, according to the Cornell College of Veterinary Medicine.
Two veterinarians later confirmed the kitten’s gender. It was the first male calico the veterinarians, Dupont or Magish had ever seen, Dupont and Magish said.
“We just thought how incredibly unusual and what fun it is,” Dupont said, adding that due to their rarity, male calicos are often called “unicorn cats.”
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An appropriate name
Appropriately, the now 11-week-old kitten has been temporarily named Unicorn, with Magish nicknaming him Charlie Unicorn as a nod to the viral animated YouTube video, Charlie the Unicorn.
While a typical kitten adoption fee at NoCo Kitties is $195, Unicorn is expected to have a wider draw. Because of this, Dupont said NoCo Kitties is hoping to host some sort of fundraiser around his impending adoption, which is expected as soon as he weighs enough to get neutered.
“We will probably get huge adoption offers for him, but we want him to go to the best home, and that’s not necessarily the one that could be the highest bidder,” Dupont said.
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