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.

Little Momma's kittens

Hi.  Didn't mean to take as long as I did to follow up with Little Momma and her kittens.  Sometimes life just kind of gets in the way of itself.

Little Momma had two kittens, an orange boy I started calling B.O.B (Big Orange Boy, Bobby for short), and a spotted brown tabby who wound up with the name Little Dots, mostly because I couldn't come up with anything else I liked.

They were about the same size/age as Billy White Shoes, and it took them all about ten minutes to decide playing together was FUN.  Every morning, when I would put out fresh water and food, the two kittens would be hanging out by the back door: "Can Billy come out and play?"  They would spend the day running around, playing together until evening, when Billy would come back inside for the night.  The other two would start toward the door, but wouldn't come inside.  Bobby would let me touch him, a little, but Little Dots never would let me get close.

Eventually, Little Momma decided they were old enough to be on their own, so she started chasing them away.  They stayed in the yard, hanging out with Billy, and eventually Bobby decided to 'sneak' (he thought) into the house.  I didn't eat him, so Little Dots moved into the house, too, though she never was a comfortable inside as Bobby.

Little Dots would never spend more than a day or two in the house, before wanting back outside.  It got to the point where Dots would come in at night, spend the night cuddling with me, and want back outside in the morning.  The  she'd disappear for a couple days.  One time, she just never came back.  I suspect she had someone else caring for her, since she was never that hungry when she did come back.  I hope she just moved in with them, someplace where she could be the only kittie.

Bobby is still here, and is still playing with Billy White Shoes and Grace O'Malley when the mood strikes him.

Early photos of Bobby, when he was first moving into the house.

Some of the few photos of Little Dots I have.

For Mothers Day -- the Little Momma

Last summer I kept the back door open a crack so my kitties could get in whenever they wanted.  That, coupled with the food and water I kept out, started attracting other critters.

One of them was a tabby girl I started calling Little Momma, mostly because she had two kittens with her, and wasn't a whole lot bigger than the kittens she was raising.  Little Momma wouldn't let me get close to her, or her kittens.  But she wasn't bashful about using the supplies I set out for the crew.

The Little Momma, finishing someone's breakfast

in the kitchen.

Little Momma taught her kittens to use the Clowder's litter boxes and eat their food.  But the Clowder finally got their revenge, sort of.  Little Momma's kittens started playing with Grace O'Malley and Billy White Shoes, and eventually both of them moved inside.

One of the first photos of Little Momma's boy kitten.

He's staying under the far side of the car, just in case.

 

 

And a totally gratuitous video of Billy White Shoes as a little kitten.  I thought I had lost it, but I found it the other day.  Enjoy.

Watch Billy's ears.

They don't show up as well as I'd hoped, but they do wiggle.