Clear the kitten nursery? Mission accomplished.

You could say that the recent-clear-the-nursery event in L.A. lived up to its name — and then some.

In just five hours, 149 kittens from the kitten nursery at the Best Friends Lifesaving Center in Los Angeles — including days-old bottle babies, weeks-old gruel babies and even a mama cat with eight chubby orange kittens — found foster homes.

In fact, the turnout was so great that Best Friends staffers were able to make additional trips to rescue more kittens from Los Angeles Animal Services, where all the nursery kittens come from. Not only did it mean more of them would be saved, but everyone attending the event could go home with kittens to foster.

By the end of the day, the kitten nursery had indeed been cleared, thanks to everyone who showed up ready to help. Foster moms and dads, many of whom were new to the job, learned everything from how to bottle-feed kittens to how to keep them warm. Then they returned home with adorable babies in tow, ready to help them grow healthy and strong so they can find forever homes.

Today, the nursery is bustling again with more kittens from L.A. shelters. After all, it is kitten season, and as long as kittens remain at risk in shelters, so will the need for foster homes — not just in L.A., but all across the country.

8 reasons to foster kittens

Fostering is incredibly important, and learning how to care for these tiny balls of fur is a lot of fun. The photos below are only a glimpse of the cute overload that comes with fostering kittens.

Sign up to foster kittens near you

Photos courtesy of Todd Roisman