Windmillcats of Kinderdijk

The Windmillcats of Kinderdijk.

This wellknown location has a rich historic background;a tale in which a cat and a little child in a cradle played an important role in giving a name to the village of Kinderdijk,ie. Childrensdyke.
Today are the distant descendants ,the Windmillcats,taken care of by the catshelter "De Kattenmand" and the "Dierenbescherming West Alblasserwaard",a local branch of the Dutch SPCA.These cats are supported by tenacious volunteers and are dependant on gifts from society for food and medical aid . =historic links to the St.Elizabeth flood !

In 1999 Nel de Joode started,together with her husband Leen,feeding the cats in an attempt to give them a chance of survival inspite of the odds.
Later on they were joined by more volunteers;meanwhile the majority of the cats were spayed and neutered to limit the increase of the population.
Especially during wintertime conditions are very harsh for
the Windmillcats,when a cold wind is blowing and the temperature reaches below zero degrees.

Here you can see a spot,where some cats can shelter during bad weather(behind the horse,near the trees volunteers made them a simple wooden shack).

During the photosession,summer 2003,
it was a nice warm day;more often it's
raining cats and dogs in the Netherlands.

As you may know,cats are not particularly
fond of rainy and wet weather.They like to
hide away from all the droplets falling out of the greyish sky,so often portrayed by Dutch painters ;-)

The Windmillcats are located in a reasonably large area,yet their number remains fairly constant.
Newcomers are not tolerated by them and are chased away immediately;therefore we are not afraid being confronted by a growing population in the future.

Due to the cost of neutering and the catfood,expenses are too easily getting out of hand.The Windmillcats really need your help;please donate something or better still adopt one of them to keep the project running.

The Windmillcats are (among others): Sientje,Nelleke,Boris,Wickey,Eva,Masky,Myra,Lotje,Bertje,Sjoerd .They would really appreciate it if you could adopt one of them for Eur. 50,- a cat/year.

You are of course free to adopt more cats;in case it suites you better to make a donation,you can always contact us in the catshelter:
                                            "De Kattenmand"

   best by Email                  or by (snail)mail




          or by telephone

they will contact you and take care of the paperwork for your adoption or donation.

Do help us with adoptions or donations to get food and medical care,thank you very much !!!

"The Windmillcats of Kinderdijk"

Thanks to the good care ,in bad weather also,of the volunteers the cats really look fine now.
With your help this SPCA project can continue in the future !

Luckily there are several catlovers,who donated or adopted some cats since 2000.
Unfortunately there are not sufficient adoptions of Windmillcats till now;this somehow still endangers the project,due to rising costs.

Kinderdijk got the name from an event,that took place during the Elizabeth-flood,an extremely violent flooding.A cat kept a cradle with a child in balance on the waves and all this resulted in both,being alive,stranding on a dyke........

St.Elizabeth flood.
A particularly severe northwestern stormfront followed by a very high surge,tsunami as we say today, and the high waterlevel of the river led to the collapse of the dykes.The following flooding wreaked havoc in Zeeland and Holland;during this calamity at least 2000 people lost their lives.The dykes of the Grote Waard(to the northeast of Dordrecht)also gave way to the water.
There is a misunderstanding of the origin of the Biesbosch,supposedly caused by the flooding;in reality this area was formed not only by the Elizabeth flood in 1421,but more so after several defects in the dykes in 1424.

There's now a photo album of "The Windmillcats of Kinderdijk" to get to know them from closeby.

To view the pics from July 2005 click the album below, enjoy the cats........

There's so much more on the Dutch version of the Windmillcats pages like video's on YouTube and lots more pics on these feral cats !!! See them in their daily lives at the windmills of Kinderdijk.

Visit the Molenkatten van Kinderdijk on their own pages:
click here please