Rescue Story: Those Kittens!
You read about their mom, Angry, last week, and now you at least get a peek at her kittens! They don’t have names yet and they are quite concerned for their safety, but they are doing well overall.
They appear to be about eight weeks old. They are in a large dog crate covered with sheets and a large carrier for them inside to hide in when they need it. Initially they hid every time she went into the crate to feed or clean, but she saw and heard evidence of their play when she wasn’t around. Then she noticed they had come out of the carrier and were hiding behind the litterbox when she was in there, and actually peeked at her, and they were active more often. So far they aren’t impressed by attempts to socialize them, but they didn’t hide when I was there to take pictures.
This photo was taken by a neighbor. There are three kittens in this litter, the third a longhaired tabby. In the photo above you can see the black and tabby kittens together and the longhair by itself. Only two went into traps the week before last when the caretaker trapped five of the cats we’d been working on for months. The caretaker was convinced something had happened to the other kitten since she hadn’t even seen it around. I told her to give the situation some time and it would likely show up. Often there is one kitten in a feral litter who is far more fearful than its siblings and you don’t see it as often, and it just won’t go into a trap. The longhaired kitten did eventually come to eat. When its siblings were trapped, its mother had been trapped too, so it was out there all alone for a few days.
The photo above was taken by the caretaker. You can see the longhaired tabby kitten and its black mother in the center of the photo. She reported that the kitten now showed up with Angry, its mother. Though it would often go into the trap it would come back out before it had gone in far enough to trip it, and she felt its mother was telling it not to go into the trap. The kitten is still in the socialization stage so its mother probably is telling it this cage thing isn’t safe, especially after her experience being trapped. The kitten does show up now and then on its own, and if it starts to avoid the trap we’ll have to try the drop trap.
Would you like to donate some canned food for the kittens?
I picked up some donated dry food for the kittens, but they need canned food too and she could really use the help for that—she’s already feeding a half dozen cats outside. If anyone would like to donate to buy some kitten food, or would like to buy some and ship it to her or me, let me know. Chewy has many choices. I used to use Fancy Feast because it’s the most available and the least expensive, but I noticed it has “real milk” in it and it doesn’t specify if it’s cow’s milk or not. Goat milk would be fine, but we all know that cats don’t digest cow’s milk well, and it can actually upset their digestion. Triumph has a turkey pate kitten food that’s about the same price and it actually comes in 3 oz. and 5.5 oz. cans. These two are eating everything in sight as they should be at this age, so the larger cans would be a better deal.
So wish her luck as the kittens are socialized! We plan to surrender them to one of the shelters we work with when they are ready for adoption.
Gifts featuring cats you know! Visit Portraits of Animals
Feline Gifts from Portraits of Animals!
Someone as a kitten, either Moses or Fawn. It’s in my note card set name “Feline Sketches”. Read more.
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Weekly schedule of features:
Sunday: Essays, Pet Loss, Poetry, The Artist’s Life
Monday: Adoptable Cats, TNR & Shelters
Tuesday: Rescue Stories
Wednesday: Commissioned Portrait or Featured Artwork
Thursday: New Merchandise
Friday: Book Review, Health and Welfare, Advocacy
Saturday: Your Backyard Wildlife Habitat, Living Green With Pets, Creating With Cats
And sometimes, I just throw my hands in the air and have fun!
The kittens are mighty cute!
Here’s hoping you can catch all of them.
She did trap the third one! Now for socialization…