1 + 6 - 1

Nothing ever works out like you think it will....

Lira arrived with her 6 two-day old kittens, the whole bunch feral.  I should have known how this one was going to go, based on the way it started.  I got the call they had arrived at the shelter, and were waiting for me to pick them up.  When I arrived, they were in an ENORMOUS dog crate, entirely too heavy for one person to lift.  First problem:  moving mom and kittens to a smaller carrier that I could handle by myself.  There seemed to be some sense that mom would explode in a spitting, demonic frenzy once the cage door was opened.  Cautiously, two of us opened the cage door, and removed the kittens one by one as if they were tiny IED's.  We placed them in the smaller carrier, then went for mom.  Turns out she was extremely wary, but not aggressive.  Mission accomplished.

I brought the bunch home, and settled them into an upstairs bedroom already set up for them.  Now it's pretty easy for a couple of weeks; mom does most of the work.  I give the new family some quiet time to settle in, and watch tv downstairs.  I could swear I hear tiny kitten mews, even above the tv sound.  Impossible.  They are upstairs, sealed in a room with a closed door, one which I had spent some time that morning adjusting so that it would latch better when shut.

My cat-like curiosity was killing me, so I went upstairs to check.  Sure enough, the door is ajar, and my lovingly prepared kitten nest box is missing mom, plus two kittens.  Now I'm panicked.  Mom is feral, and certainly won't do anything but hide if I call for her, and she could be anywhere in the house at this point.  I search all over, to no avail.  There are a million places to hide.  It is an antique house, filled with nooks, crannies, and tons of 'collectibles'.  Since there are still four kittens upstairs, I decide to sit quietly in the room, and wait to see if mom shows up to collect more.  Strategy rewarded, she enters the room, and nabs another tiny kitten.  I can hear her trot downstairs, so I try to discreetly follow her to see where she dares think she can make a better nest than I did.  Of course, she vanishes into a nook.  Or cranny.

I go back upstairs to wait again, but mom makes no more appearances.  Now what?  The three kittens remaining are getting hungry.  Is her plan to leave the other three behind, because she senses they're weaker, or she can't care for all six for some reason??  Is she taking care of the three she's already taken?  Now I'm in a pickle.  If she doesn't come back soon, I need to start breaking out the kitten formula and bottles for the three orphans.  I decide to do yet another search and reconnaissance.  It's now about 3 am.  Finally, I narrow my search to the dining room, in what was the original kitchen of the house in the 1700's.  There is a large fireplace, and an adjacent beehive oven.  The fireplace is screened well, and the oven has a metal door, so I know she's not in there.

Under the beehive oven is another opening, about ten inches square, which opens wider inside and goes back almost four feet for the wood for the fire.  I haven't used it in ages, but have a bunch of small  logs and kindling stuffed in there, almost filling the opening.

I shine a flashlight between the logs, and catch a glint of reflection.

Bingo.

I start carefully removing the wood; I can't really see if the kittens are in there or not.

Finally I can get a good enough of a look to assess what's going on in there....I see the three kittens; all oblivious to their abandoned siblings, happily nursing away.  Mom is clearly not happy with me discovering her ingenious hiding spot, but that doesn't deter me from removing the rest of the wood.

 I consider the options.  I can leave her there, and bring the other three kittens down there, and shove them in with her and hope she accepts them again.  It's too far back for me to reach her with my arm, so if it goes badly, there won't be anything for me to do.  Plus, I won't be able to really monitor the kittens while they're in there, it's late march in new england, and still quite cold.  They're laying on bricks, which are cold, and there are large spaces between many of the bricks, which could allow a kitten to fall into them.

I decide the kittens can't stay in there.  I bring the other kittens down into the room, and set about retrieving the kittens from the back, using an improvised piece of cardboard and a swiffer-type thing as a sort of pizza oven scoop.  Mom quickly escapes, and I manage to pull the kittens out, one by one.

beehive oven with metal door above;
main fireplace to right; new nest spot at bottom

It's now about 4 am, and I decide a compromise between me and mom is in order.  She can stay in the dining room for now, with a new nest box under the dining room table where it's nice and dark...much like the now-well-sealed wood compartment.


With all six kittens now reunited, mom gives me a look of complete disdain, and climbs into the nest box and starts nursing the whole clan.

Berry Kittens

My largest load-o-kitties came next....the 'Berry' kittens.  This was a mom, Elderberry (of course!) and her eight, yes, EIGHT kittens.  This poor mom, she had her work cut out for her. The kittens were only a couple of weeks when I got them, but they grew quickly, thanks to mom's great care.




This was not only the largest, but the youngest bunch to date.  This is the litter when they first came home, eyes just opening, and ears still pointing forward.  They were a kitty potpourri of colors!





About a week later, getting fuzzier and fuzzier.

Poor mom couldn't make a move without the whole bunch crashing in for a feeding frenzy; I swear they could gang up and plot to tip her so she would nurse.

She always gave me these looks of exasperation...

But, eventually gave in to their demands.  She was a GREAT mother, and a real trooper.







She was so good she would often plop down on me if I was laying on the sofa, belly up, and let all eight kittens pile on and nurse. Here she is:


The only problem with Mom Elderberry was a diminishing appetite, not good for a nursing mom with eight hungry kittens.  I tried everything recommended; rotisserie chicken, canned tuna and other fish, baby food, etc. - she just kept getting skinnier and skinnier.  She really started to look emaciated:



you can see how thin she is in this photo...



Eventually, out of sheer desperation, I started giving her raw boneless chicken breasts, chopped into small cubes.  I really didn't know any thing about raw food diets for cats, but it was the only thing she would eat for awhile.  It seemed to do the trick, and soon she was back to her fighting weight (and kitten weaning helped a lot!!)  She began to eat her regular food again soon after.  I always wonder how raw food plays into the diets of these cats, since most of them are feral, and sometimes not part of any regularly fed feral colony.  Depending on their location and circumstances, much of their regular diet consists of what prey they can capture - ultimately, a raw diet...



















Here are some of the individual 'berry' kittens; they were a most photogenic group!

This is how I was greeted every morning: