By . Daily Mail Reporter . PUBLISHED: . 11:03 EST, 25 January 2013 . | . UPDATED: . 13:32 EST, 25 January 2013 . Floppy feline: Four month old rescue kitten Harvey was born with bones missing from his two front legs . The pictures of Harvey the kitten crawling around on his elbows tugged at the heart-strings of cat-lovers across the globe. The four-month-old cat rescue cat was born with a rare condition which meant he had no bones in his front legs. But Harvey is now expected to be walking around on his front paws in a couple of months after a total of £3,500 was donated to fund a operation to fix the birth defect. The money has flooded in during the past few days to a JustGiving webpage, called . 'Harvey's Appeal', set up by staff at Glasgow Cats Protection. Harvey, who has a rare condition . called radial agenesis, was spotted when his owner put him up for sale . on the online advertising site Gumtree. An X-ray revealed that Harvey’s ulna and radius bones, which connect the upper half of his front legs to his paws, were missing. The kitten is currently being looked after by his ‘foster carer’ Liz McCulloch, 50, who said: . ‘He’s a lovely little thing. Scroll down for video . Resourceful: Harvey's foster carer says the kitten's rare condition doesn't slow it down . Generous: More than £3,500 has been donated during to a JustGiving webpage, called 'Harvey's Appeal', set up by staff at Glasgow Cats Protection. ‘Because Harvey was born that way he . doesn’t know there’s anything wrong with him so he runs around on his . elbows and happily plays with my other cat and dog. ‘He’s OK at the moment but if he doesn’t get the operation he’ll start to damage his spine when he gets bigger.’ A well-wisher acquired Harvey from Gumtree in November and handed him in at a Cats Protection branch in Glasgow. Cruel: The kitten, which suffers with radial agenesis, had been listed for sale on the advertising website Gumtree by its cruel former owner . Operation: Harvey is missing the bones that connect the upper half of the front legs to the paws, but is due to have metal pins fitted as a replacement thanks to animal charity Cats Protection . Purr-fect future: The rescue kitten with 'foster owner' Liz McCulloch, who says she has never seen a cat with a condition like Harvey's . 'Lovely little thing': Harvey is being looked after by Liz McCulloch, who has been fostering cats for 25 years . Workers, who thought he had simply . been born with dislocated legs, took him to a vet, where the X-ray . revealed he had radial agenesis, which occurs when an animal’s leg bones . fail to develop. The condition can be corrected by . implanting metal pins between the paw and upper bone, but an operation . can be carried out only on cats over six months old to give the existing . bones time to harden and take the weight of the pins. Lorraine Currie, co-ordinator of Cats . Protection’s Glasgow branch, said: ‘A friend of the branch spotted him . on Gumtree. It said in the advert he had two broken legs but when she . got there he had no bones at all. She felt sorry for him and took him . home but it became clear he needed a lot of treatment and that’s when we . got involved. Rare condition: Only four cats have been born with radial agenesis in Scotland in the past 30 years . ‘Once Harvey has had the operation, his future looks very bright.’ A spokesman for Gumtree, which lets . sellers post adverts for free,  said: ‘We have a very strict policy . regarding the sale of sick or injured animals on the website. ‘We apologise that someone was able . to post an advert for Harvey despite him having medical problems and we . will do our best to make sure similar incidents do not occur in the . future.’ Radial agenesis (also known as squitten) is known as the 'twisty' mutation in cats. It causes the two long bones in the lower foreleg to be unusually short. In severe cases, the bone is almost absent and the paw appears to be attached to the elbow. The condition became well known when an individual in Texas, U.S. deliberately bred several cats with this affliction and dubbed them 'twisty cats' Cats with the condition often sit on their rump with their forelegs unable to touch the floor; this gives them a resemblance to a squirrel or kangaroo .
Harvey the kitten captured the heart of cat-lovers after pictured crawling on his elbows .
The four-month-old was rescued after it was spotted listed for sale on the Gumtree website by its cruel owner .
Harvey is now due to have operation to straighten his two front legs .
By . Daily Mail Reporter . PUBLISHED: . 11:03 EST, 25 January 2013 . | . UPDATED: . 13:32 EST, 25 January 2013 . Floppy feline: Four month old rescue kitten Harvey was born with bones missing from his two front legs . The pictures of Harvey the kitten crawling around on his elbows tugged at the heart-strings of cat-lovers across the globe. The four-month-old cat rescue cat was born with a rare condition which meant he had no bones in his front legs. But Harvey is now expected to be walking around on his front paws in a couple of months after a total of £3,500 was donated to fund a operation to fix the birth defect. The money has flooded in during the past few days to a JustGiving webpage, called . 'Harvey's Appeal', set up by staff at Glasgow Cats Protection. Harvey, who has a rare condition . called radial agenesis, was spotted when his owner put him up for sale . on the online advertising site Gumtree. An X-ray revealed that Harvey’s ulna and radius bones, which connect the upper half of his front legs to his paws, were missing. The kitten is currently being looked after by his ‘foster carer’ Liz McCulloch, 50, who said: . ‘He’s a lovely little thing. Scroll down for video . Resourceful: Harvey's foster carer says the kitten's rare condition doesn't slow it down . Generous: More than £3,500 has been donated during to a JustGiving webpage, called 'Harvey's Appeal', set up by staff at Glasgow Cats Protection. ‘Because Harvey was born that way he . doesn’t know there’s anything wrong with him so he runs around on his . elbows and happily plays with my other cat and dog. ‘He’s OK at the moment but if he doesn’t get the operation he’ll start to damage his spine when he gets bigger.’ A well-wisher acquired Harvey from Gumtree in November and handed him in at a Cats Protection branch in Glasgow. Cruel: The kitten, which suffers with radial agenesis, had been listed for sale on the advertising website Gumtree by its cruel former owner . Operation: Harvey is missing the bones that connect the upper half of the front legs to the paws, but is due to have metal pins fitted as a replacement thanks to animal charity Cats Protection . Purr-fect future: The rescue kitten with 'foster owner' Liz McCulloch, who says she has never seen a cat with a condition like Harvey's . 'Lovely little thing': Harvey is being looked after by Liz McCulloch, who has been fostering cats for 25 years . Workers, who thought he had simply . been born with dislocated legs, took him to a vet, where the X-ray . revealed he had radial agenesis, which occurs when an animal’s leg bones . fail to develop. The condition can be corrected by . implanting metal pins between the paw and upper bone, but an operation . can be carried out only on cats over six months old to give the existing . bones time to harden and take the weight of the pins. Lorraine Currie, co-ordinator of Cats . Protection’s Glasgow branch, said: ‘A friend of the branch spotted him . on Gumtree. It said in the advert he had two broken legs but when she . got there he had no bones at all. She felt sorry for him and took him . home but it became clear he needed a lot of treatment and that’s when we . got involved. Rare condition: Only four cats have been born with radial agenesis in Scotland in the past 30 years . ‘Once Harvey has had the operation, his future looks very bright.’ A spokesman for Gumtree, which lets . sellers post adverts for free,  said: ‘We have a very strict policy . regarding the sale of sick or injured animals on the website. ‘We apologise that someone was able . to post an advert for Harvey despite him having medical problems and we . will do our best to make sure similar incidents do not occur in the . future.’ Radial agenesis (also known as squitten) is known as the 'twisty' mutation in cats. It causes the two long bones in the lower foreleg to be unusually short. In severe cases, the bone is almost absent and the paw appears to be attached to the elbow. The condition became well known when an individual in Texas, U.S. deliberately bred several cats with this affliction and dubbed them 'twisty cats' Cats with the condition often sit on their rump with their forelegs unable to touch the floor; this gives them a resemblance to a squirrel or kangaroo .
from his two front legs . The pictures of Harvey the kitten crawling around on his elbows tugged in his front legs. But Harvey is now expected to agenesis, was spotted when his owner put him up for sale . on the online advertising site sale on the advertising website Gumtree by its front legs to the paws, but is due to have metal