POPULATION STATISTICS

My House

Adult Cats: 6

Kittens: 4

Human: 1

I should add that I only regard three of the adult cats as actually being mine. I've now had Ziggy (see previous post), a nervous black and white cat for three weeks who was supposed to receive her second vaccination and be transported to the re-homing centre yesterday but I didn't fancy my chances of getting her into the carrier. After three weeks she still runs away from me though I can stroke her briefly when I've put food down for her. She spends almost all her time in my bedroom, mostly under the armchair.

In complete contrast is Daisy, the cat I took in to foster on Wednesday, which has investigated every nook and cranny. Though assured she was a lovely friendly little thing, several bleeding wounds suggested to me that this might not be the case. She is now starting to let me stroke her but I have to be very careful and observant as she can turn in a millisecond.

Yesterday afternoon I was having a well-earned nap -circumstances permitting, I have a well-earned nap every afternoon-  when I was woken by Susan Hardy banging loudly on the door and telling me there was an emergency. The emergency consisted of Animal Krackers having to take in three mother cats which had taken up residence in a shed -where they were fed by the kind cat-loving home owners- and had given birth to 16 or so baby kittens. As two of the mothers were feral, this was being organised by an associate of ours who has lots of experience in dealing with ferals, mine is almost zero. 

I do know from my own experience that cats with new kittens will happily feed kittens from another litter. Carole will often put several kits from different litters in with one mother should the need arise. It had been decided that I would take the mother that wasn't feral and a guess was taken as to which of the kittens were hers. I can tell you now that they are from at least two different litters. There are two pairs of black and grey, one set being 1-2 weeks younger than the others. I was ordered to put them in a cage in my small conservatory and I duly did as I was told. Not that I minded as looking after baby kittens is a new experience for me.

The mother is very friendly and has to be someone's lost pet. She probably looked for somewhere to give birth and found the two ferals and their safe haven. Now I've got her. she is very friendly and will stop nursing the kittens if I turn up wanting me to make a fuss of her. Today I let the cage door open and she's currently asleep on a chair in the conservatory with all the kittens snuggled up against her. She is a good mother and nurses them properly but just to make sure they were getting enough nourishment I got some Royal Canin Babycat Milk which I made up and fed to them. I gave them two half syringes each which they all swallowed without regurgitating. 

If anyone is interested, they'll be available for homing directly from me in about 5-6 weeks time. Expect updates and photos of growing kittens over the next few weeks.

The two ferals and their kittens are temporarily being kept upstairs in a cage in our shop until our feral expert can find somewhere more suitable.