Old pictures.
She was born in 2001 and that is also when hubby acquired her. I first met her in 2006 when I met my hubby. She was our only cat for many, many years. Then we decided to get another cat since she's getting older and not keeping the mouse population down like she used to, so we got OrangeJello (or MichaelOrangeJello as I like to call him haha).
Old pictures.
We finally had him neutered a few weeks ago. Just in time too because he was constantly getting in fights with other cats and was even attacking Gray Kitty. I was not happy.
Not even a week after we neutered him I walked out to the pasture to open the hay ring so the horses could finish off the hay and we could put out a new bale..... and found a stray mamma cat and her five kittens in the horses' leftover hay!!!!! She'd just given birth within days because they still had dried umbilical cords attached.
My first thought was that OrangeJello must be a daddy and we didn't get him neutered in time lol. It's possible, but who knows really. The mom ran off and I had to move the babies because I couldn't not put out hay for the horses. I was terrified that by moving them she wouldn't come back to them or she'd hide them. Luckily she seemed to like her huge pet taxi full of hay and kept them there for a couple of weeks. I fed her every day, but she was super skittish and hissed, then ran away when I got too close. I tried to only go over there when she was away so that I wouldn't spook her.
On Thursday I walked out to the pasture before work to feed her and spotted her trotting away with a kitten in her mouth. I was heartbroken because I thought I wouldn't be able to find them. I followed her and found where she was keeping them. As soon as she put the kitten down I ran her off and gathered up her kittens. I put them back in the pet taxi and closed the door. Hubby set up the live animal trap and put food in it... then we went to work... and I stressed. all. day. long... I was so scared she wouldn't come back and I would have to bottle feed them, or that they would go too long without food while I was at work.
Hubby went home for lunch (only a few hours later) and luckily she was in the live trap!!!! He put her in the pet taxi (she strolled nonchalant into it) and closed her in. Then when I got home from work we moved the pet taxi to our screened in porch. I am so much less stressed about them now that they are contained.
To my huge surprised when I opened the pen to give her some food she rolled over on her back (on top of her kittens) and purred!!! She wasn't feral at all. She let me pet her and she rubbed against hubby and crawled into his lap. She's a total sweetheart. :D She only hissed at us the first day and now she's just so loving. Here are some pictures from today.
She has the most incredible green eyes!
She's tiny too!!! So small for a grown cat!
She's tiny too!!! So small for a grown cat!
This one is my favorite! He/she has very wide classic tabby stripes
on the body and is the only one with an orange face.
SO CUTE!!!!!
They are all so different. You can't see my favorite very well in this pictures because he/she is under the gray striped kitten on the left haha.
I moved them to the smaller cage with blankets instead of the closed in taxi with hay. They seem to like it. Their eyes are open and they are walking around pretty well. They didn't eat any of their soaked food because they had full bellies of milk, but they will start eating soon. I'm guessing they are about four weeks old going by their development and when I found them.
I hope you're proud of yourself Pops!
So now I have a whole passel of cats! We've already found a home for one kitten once he/she is weaned. I'm keeping my favorite one with the orange face. We are going to spay the mom and turn her loose because she most likely belongs to one of the neighbors. If she decides to stick around that is fine with me. I've already started calling her Emerald (Emi) because of her eyes. The other kittens we will either find homes for or we will spay/neuter them and let them hang out with our crew. :D Welcome to the family kittens!!
Kittens are my favorite. Such cute babies! We've had a few strays come by and have kittens on our property. I had tried keeping a couple, but sadly we live on a super busy road and it was dangerous to keep outside cats. I ended up rescuing a Siamese (strictly indoors) a few months ago - I've quickly become a cat person.
ReplyDeleteThat's so sad about losing them on the busy road... that does happen. :( Lucky for me we're on a really quiet back road with ten acres, so I rarely see dead cats on the road. My cats go in and out. They are housebroken like the dog and they choose how much they want to be out depending on the time of year. At this time of year they are out almost all the time. We keep the older cat in at night though because she has been hurt a couple of times at night.
DeleteInteresting that mama changed so drastically and got over her fear of you. I went through the same thing when my neighbors moved out and left their unspade female cat behind to fend for herself. We had a feral Tom cat roaming the neighborhood, and next thing we knew there were kittens everywhere. We took care of them for a while, and then another neighbor took over, and she became the crazy cat lady with fifty feral cats.
ReplyDeleteOh good grief! That's the problem with not spaying and neutering feral cats... they multiply quickly!! I refuse to become the crazy cat lady lol. I'm pretty sure I'll be able to find a clinic that will give me a big discount for multiples and ferals (even though she isn't technically feral....), but if not I hope I can find them homes because I'll never be able to afford all of them at full price...........
DeleteI was really surprised at how quickly she turned around too. I should have realized it to be honest. She would pause like she wanted to stay before bolting. Most truly feral cats bolt at the first sign of humans. My guess is that she belongs to someone around here and this is her first litter so she's very protective of them. As soon as she realized she was trapped and that we wouldn't hurt her she completely turned around and is very loving. She's a really sweet cat. I have a feeling someone is probably missing her right now, but I'm not giving her back until she's spayed... it's so irresponsible leaving them out to breed indiscriminately. Yes, I know I'm being hypocritical because I left OrangeJello out for a couple of months.... I honestly didn't think there were any cats in the neighborhood because I never saw any... now I regret not keeping him put up until we could get him neutered. Very stupid of me. I'm taking care of the kittens though, so at least I am accepting responsibility for it. :)
You are a such a good person! thank you for taking care of the family. :)
ReplyDeleteI'm sure I'm partially to blame for creating the kittens (not getting OrangeJello neutered quickly enough or keeping him locked up), so I have to take care of them, but I don't mind because they are sooooo adorable! :D
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