FIVE tiny kittens are on the road to recovery after they were dumped underneath rubbish and left to die.

The litter was discovered by a member of the public last month in a small cardboard box buried under rubbish near some bins in the Buckskin area of Basingstoke.

Thought to be just a few days old, they were crying to be fed and were underweight and freezing cold.

The kittens were taken to Happy Cat Rescue in Bordon, where Jo Lucas set about trying to find someone to look after them.

She said: “The kittens were so cold, small and weak they needed to be hand-reared.

"A friend of mine hand-reared three kittens for us earlier in the year so I said we would take them into our care.”

Claire Brimele has since spent the last six weeks dedicating her time hand-rearing the kittens, bottle feeding them every two hours for the first few weeks as their mother would have done, in an attempt to save their lives.

The six kittens that were found were underweight, thought to have been born premature, and weighed around 75 grams, when they should have been 90 to 100g.

Sadly, one of the litter didn’t make it and was put down at two weeks old, but the other five – Ralph (the only boy), Lauren, Prada, Chanel and Elle – are now flourishing in their temporary home.

Mother-of-two Claire, who lives in Little London, said: “They are doing really well.

"When they were new born which is what they were when they came to me I had to feed them every two hours.”

She added: “They end up coming before the family.

"My life revolves around kittens, I can’t go anywhere.

"But I couldn’t say no because they would die otherwise.

"It’s very rewarding. They are running around now and clawing my furniture!”

The 41-year-old, who has numerous pets of her own including cats, dogs and a tortoise, will keep the kittens until they are around nine weeks old before permanent homes are found for them.

She said: “I will cry like a baby when they leave. It’s heartbreaking.”

Referring to the person who left the kittens to die under a pile of in Buckskin, she added: “I just think it’s disgusting."

Mrs Brimele added: “There’s no need for it, there’s plenty of places where you can take animals to give them a better chance.

“Even if they had left them on someone’s front door.

“It’s only that they were hungry and had a loud cry that they were found.

“They had been hidden under boxes and their box was so small no one would have thought to look in it.”

Charlotte Davey, who discovered the kittens near her work at Curry Queen, at the Buckskin Centre, said: “Their screeching was quite loud. I put my phone on and used it as a torch to find them. They were inside a cardboard box it was right in the middle of all this rubbish.”

The 24-year-old mother-of-two, from Popley, took the kittens home before contacting the RSPCA, which said it could not help.

She then posted on Facebook, and was eventually put in touch with Happy Cat Rescue, which collected the kittens.

Charlotte has kept in touch with Claire, and said: “I have seen the kittens a couple of times and they are all little terrors!”

Referring to the person who dumped the litter, she added: “I have no words to describe them. I would never abandon an animal.”

Ms Lucas urged pet owners to act responsibly, adding: “People are finding the economic times very hard and are not getting their cats neutered.

“During the ‘kitten season’, normally March to September, most female cats, if not spayed, will come on heat and become pregnant. This can happen twice.

“It’s not just people with the female cats – tom cats will stray for miles to find a mate and also risk roads and fighting.

“Neutering a cat is a quick procedure and will normally ensure that cat is far more homely and less likely to roam.

“I would hope that people if they got into difficulty would ask a rescue such as ourselves for help, but some people sadly won’t. They will try to dispose of the problem.”

Cats Protection Basingstoke, the RSPCA and Happy Cat Rescue run schemes to help people neuter cats.