Cat herding

On Friday evening, I was a little tired.  And when Shiloh began crying at the door begging to come in the house, and Twinkle got determined to sit on the couch in the exact place I wanted to rest my arm, I said, "I don't want one more 'thing' to need me".  

Well, some evil spirit must have heard me because Saturday morning I heard a loud, persistent little meow in the garage.  When I opened the door a tiny, skinny, black kitten was sitting there.  Crying.  Needing me.  I leaned over to pick it up, and instead of running away like many of the "wild" kittens around here, he wanted to be held.

We have a few feral cats at our house.  They are descendants of a long line of cats who have lived around here for many years.  Occasionally, one of them will be a little tame, but for the most part they are pretty wild.  Their job is to keep the mouse population controlled.  My job is to feed them.  We have an agreement.

I knew that a litter of kittens had been born because I had seen them a couple of weeks ago.  I had never seen who the mother was, but assumed that the babies were being taken care of.  I guess I was wrong.

Little Black Kitty spent the day resting in a box in our kitchen.  Saturday evening David and Daniel were outside when they heard another kitten crying.  That was good because now Little Black Kitty had his brother, Little Tabby Kitty, with him,  (Let's just say they are all boys.)  I thought I had seen four kittens in the litter so I assumed two had survived, two had not made it.

Yesterday morning I heard a kitten crying outside.  When I looked out the back window to find the soundmaker, I saw the mother cat.  She was irritatedly allowing a kitten to nurse.  When she saw me, she ran to the window, looked into my eyes, and ran away.  I knew what she meant.  She just couldn't do it any more, would I please help her.  Outside I found the other two kittens.  They ran right to me and into the box they went.

I think the little fellows are between 3 and 4 weeks old, but I'm not sure.  I bought some kitten formula and a little baby kitty bottle.  They are eating well and starting to be comfortable with us.  I even saw them wrestling with each other this morning.

I'm giving them a bath every evening to get rid of their fleas.  They don't mind it as much as you might think!  This picture is after their bath.  I know it is fuzzy, but they are rambunctious children and won't sit still to be photographed.

This morning I heard another kitten.  What I thought was a litter of four must have been a litter of five.  When I went out to check on the little one, it ran away from me.  Mama Kitty came running behind it and when she saw me she ran away, too.  I'll take that as a sign that the two of them can take care of each other.  But, I didn't tell them that I don't want one more thing to need me.  I won't be saying that again!