Again...
We have kittens in our yard or in our house or both almost every Spring and Fall. And we were aware that some of the outside ferals must be nursing kittens, but as of this week, we hadn't seen any. Then... DH was weed-wacking on the side of the house Sunday when out popped a very scared little black kitten. DH immediately picked him up and brought him inside. My first thought was, "oh no..." then, "he's so-oo cute". As I settled him in, DH went out and checked the area he was in and pretty soon came in with another. Then I thought, "oh...oh". This is how we got the 6 cats we have now. We had always kept the number at 3... then a feral had 5 kittens in our yard (our 3 black and whites are part of that original 5). But there were no more (at least so far).
They are both black, one medium hair, one long hair... about 5 weeks old and fairly chubby. So their mama was taking good care of them. Actually it is a bit sad as she is still out there looking for them and crying. We were tempted to put them back but decided they would have a much better chance in life getting adopted into a good home then living outside with the other ferals. But mama is sad... and it hurts. We actually brought them out in a crate today and put them where she could find them and she layed down by the crate with them... even sniffing their little paws as they pushed them through the bars. DH says that it's too hard on her to do this, but I thought she needed to know that they were alright and that they just didn't disappear.
Oh... and this is an update from yesterday evening. We now see 2 more black kittens in the front yard by the bay window and as of about 7pm last night, we see 3 more little black and white kittens frolicking on the windowsill in the den!! It's like, "OMG, is it 'coming out' day! They all look to be about 6-8 weeks old... a little older than the ones we took inside and moving a lot faster.
I will try to get some pictures, but we may not be able to catch these.
9 comments:
Oh! Oh, they're adorable. Yes, they'll have a better chance at a good life spayed/neutered and indoors. But the poor momma cat. :-(
Will you try to find homes for them?
And all the others...! It's high kitten season now. :-(
Omg ...not sure what I would do ...it must hurt to hear the cries but after about 4 days without any smell/contact she should stop ...like when kittens are taken at 8 weeks to new homes....good luck ...sounds as though you now have 8 cats....or more???? xx
Yes, we will bottle feed them and get them weaned and friendly, then take them to the adoption room at our nearby no-kill shelter. We used to take them to our Vet for first shots before the shelter, but the shelter now vaccinates them upon arrival.
The others may end up ferals in our yard if we cannot catch them in the next week or so...
Angie, we "try" hard not to consider these kittens as 'ours', but only as fosters. It's hard to do, but otherwise the house numbers would easily get out of hand.
Hi Rian, glad you're back! What a lot of kittens you wound up with. Do your resident cats get jealous or hostile to them? I'm so glad you have a good place to take them for adoption. They are beautiful kittens.
No, generally no hostility. Maybe because the resident cats are 4th and 5th generation ferals that have come and gone from our yard for years. They're mostly one big continuous family... with an outsider popping in once in a while to add to the gene pool.
ohhhh!!! so sweet!!!
really lovely post!
have a nice weekend!
Barbara
My photoblog: http://photographyforpassion.blogspot.it/
So sweet. YOu are doing great work, hard though it must be.
I have one cat that keeps me quite busy; imagine what a handful of them would create in terms of excitement.
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