Kitten update

Updating the kitten status.  I didn't realize it I left things hanging so long.

After the first three disappeared, I started taking the last two into the house in the evening whether Calleigh was around or not.  She was a decent mother kittie, but obviously had trouble defending against whatever grabbed those kittens.

For about a week, that went fine.  Then one day I was a little late collecting the kittens.  It was about dusk when I went down to the utility room.  The black & white kitten was already in there playing.  When I went out the back door, the orange kitten was lying dead a few feet from the back door.  Something had grabbed him around the chest/throat, and scraped most of the hair off of his chest, probably when he tried to fight free.  Still have no idea what it was doing this.

At that point, I grabbed that last kitten, and relocated him to the spare bedroom.  He's still there, though he seems to be wanting outside just a little bit recently.  Calleigh will come into the house and spent the night with him most evenings.  Once everyone is a bit bigger and stronger, I'll think about letting little Squeek outside again.

So something got four of Calleigh's five kittens.

Sorry to have to bring such bad news, but I thought you would want to know.

It looks like something grabbed the missing kittens

It looks like something has grabbed those three missing kittens.  I haven't seen any sign of them for several days now.  Maybe worse, some of the older stray/ferals that had been coming by to eat haven't shown up in a while.  There is a vacant lot and a patch of woods across the street.  Those woods are mostly surrounded by fields and pastures, so who knows what could be running around over there.

About all I can do is keep the last two kittens inside at night, and try to ensure the older kitties have a safe place to hide if they need to.

On the good side, Calleigh is getting more comfortable being around me while she's inside.  With luck, I'll get to pick her up and take her to the vet sometime soon.  The remaining two kittens are getting around better, and are eating solid food, although they still hit the milk bar when it's open.

Starting to worry a little

Just a quick note. The little kittens had been running around, climbing up the stairs and eating great. 

But for the last day or so, I've only seen two of them -- the orange boy(?) and one of the black and white ones.  Not sure if the others are hiding somewhere, or something has happened to them.

There has been a family of raccoons running around the last few days, eating the cat food and bird food.  The kittens were running around with the raccoon babies, and everyone was pretty much ignoring everyone while I was watching.  Not sure if they would attack kittens or not.

Momma Calleigh doesn't seem upset, but she is a new mother (less than a year old) so I'm not sure how she would react if something went wrong.

Calleigh, the Calico mom

Do you remember Little Momma?  After she and the kittens Bobby & Little Dots parted way, she disappeared for a while.  Then Little Momma reappeared with another group of kittens.

Those kittens grew up over the winter, so we never got much chance to socialize them.  Momma had five kittens, and three of them are still hanging around pretty regular.  But there was only one of them that we could touch or cuddle with.

Yep, he's sitting on the Ham-Mick

We're calling him Horatio.  It is about fifty-fifty whether we decide to keep him, or find him a different, furrever home.  It depends mostly on whether we can or not.  More on him in another post.

On to what most of you are really interested in:

KITTENS!!

Little Momma seems to mostly have boy kittens for some reason.  The litter from last Fall had only one girl kitten.  Calleigh (she was a calico) would let us get close to her, but never, quite touch her.  But she kept sneaking into the utility room.  Eventually, we found out why.

She had sneaked in there to have her kittens, way in the back where no one could get to her.

Best guess is they are about 4-6 weeks old, maybe a bit older.  They are just starting to run around and climb up and down steps.  The one at the bottom of this photo is the kitten asleep on my arm in yesterdays photo.



A shot of the proud mom.  I tried to get her to look at the camera, but she seems to be a bit shy.

One last photo, all five of the kittens, on one of their first excursions outside.

More info in a day or two.

 

Details to follow

Yes, another kitten.

But this one still has his(?) mother with him.

Easy Sunday

Starring Billie White Shoes, hanging out in the cat tree.

Billy hangs out in the tree like this quite a bit.  I would think it would give him a sore neck, but it doesn't seem to bother him any.

And yes,he was sound asleep in those first two photos.

 WELL?  You woke me.  Now what?

Yeowwwww, banana

I was seeing a lot of dirt, or grass, or something showing up in the house, especially on one chair when there usually was a kittie asleep.  Finally I figured out what was going on.

Someone in the Clowder figured out that if you chew hard enough, right on the end of the banana, you can chew open the end and start playing directly with the catnip.

They still have another banana, plus a cigar and a rainbow, so they are not deprived, bit I suspect I'm going to have to start planning to order a few more shortly, especially if word gets out.

How well do things like silvervine (and there are a couple others) work?  Anyone with experience know?  A couple of the current crew are kind of lukewarm about catnip, and I thought about trying something else if I can find anything that look promising.