Now Presenting Litter 3!
A couple of weeks ago, while I was out front weeding the roses and strawberries, out emerged 3 little fluffy, puffy kittens with a very cautious Mama Joleen. Dear Joleen, she has now brought us her THIRD litter of kittens! We have been able to trap and either spay or neuter her first two litters, but have been unsuccessful in trapping her.
The kittens are now about 6 weeks old, we think. We have an all black one that looks just like Thunder and we have named it Tito. That is what we came up with that is pretty close to Thunder or T2. Hey...it was better than Mr. T, which for a nano-second, was under consideration.
The next one is white with black and gray spots much like Mama, but with little dark spots on either side of the mouth, so the kitten has been saddled with Groucho. She is pretty darn cute...but could surprise us and be a boy.
The last one, and most unusually marked is Rocky, named after the black mask over her eyes. She has a base of white with black and almost orange-honey colored spots.
This picture is of her eating with her big sisters, Chloe and Thunder.
We have so much fun watching them play with one another, learn how to scratch on a tree, how to climb up on fences and just be kittens. I was hoping to catch them when they were 3 or 4 weeks old, but I still can't get near them now. Apparently if you catch them while they are young you have a much better chance of being able to tame them.
After the 9 or 10 months that the other kittens/cats have been around, we are getting closer every day to being able to pet them. Tiger desperately wants to be in the house, and Chloe and Thunder all sit on the rug outside the door in the morning, waiting for us to come out. The cats all greet us outside when we arrive home and they even jump up in the window and peer in, trying to see what life inside looks like.
The latest mouth count, as in how many we have to feed everyday, is up to 46, not including me or Farmer Jeff. I know that we will lose some. That is the way on the farm and the road. In the meantime, they will bring us great joy, some eggs, wet licks, snuggles and more joy.
posted by Chicken Mama at 8:56 PM
2 Comments:
I absolutely love this site. You are doing what many of us dream about. On catching mama kitty. I know you are busy but this seems like a pretty important task. Unless your death rate for cats is high on the farm, adding batch after batch of kittens to the world is not a good idea. There are too many as it is. Thankyou for trapping and "fixing" the kittens. Could different types of nets work for mom? I know it is tough, get it wrong and you might not see her again. Who is the dad?
You should definitely make catching those kittens a priority. They are of an age where they are still tameable. Your local humane society should have traps you could borrow, or try forgotten felines, who may be able to take the kittens and tame them. And get the mother cat trapped and fixed as well, otherwise it will be litters 4,5,6 and so on....
Forgotten felines also run spay/neuter clinics for ferals, so you should be able to get her fixed for not much money...
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