We finally saw the new kittens, well kitten, on the back patio. Anya put a trap out, and the curious little one walked right in. She put another trap out, and we caught the mommy cat too! We’ll get her into the vet shortly, and the barn cats won’t sprout more kittens.
We took the cats we trapped to the vet to get neutered. They were surprisingly chill in the car — not their favorite activity, but they were quiet and looking around as we drove. Dropped them off at a low cost / feral clinic in the morning, and we picked them all up a little after 4PM.
Each kitten has two days of pain killers & need to limit their activity. A neighbor will be taking the other gray kitten (the one we call Pebbles), but Ash and Fritter will be staying inside for a few more weeks so we can take them for a booster shot next month.
They are both recovering well so far — Fritter ended up having an incision in his belly, too, so Ash is recovering quicker. But they’re both happy to curl up together and nap.
Anya caught one of the other kittens from Ash’s litter — an orange and white cat. He’s scared and not so sure about us, but he is warm and snuggled into a blanket.
Ash is about six moons old now … and we still have lots of kitten snuggles!
Ash Kit is doing well — he stays in Anya’s room at night, and I’m trying to train him to pounce on Anya to wake her up when the alarm starts in the morning.
We’re trying to figure out a birthday for Ash — On August 08th, we thought there was a bigger Cali-Kitty … but that was probably just Patches being pregnant. Patches didn’t look pregnant anymore on September 05th, and on October 11th we first saw the kittens. There are just over five weeks between these two dates. Five or six weeks old (per a quick Internet search) is about the time kittens have good enough vision & are coordinated enough to be running around and starting to play.
That means he was probably born a few days before September 5th … now we have to figure out a cake for cats … tuna cake? Well, we’ve got about nine months to figure it out 🙂
Ash had his first bath today — he was pretty calm. He wasn’t super thrilled to be walking around in a tub full of water, but he loved her rubbing soap into his pelt. Getting rinsed off wasn’t awesome, but he was happy to be snuggled in a fluffy towel and dried off.
Anya got Ash back in the house! She fed him a big dish of tuna, and he let her pet him as he ate. She was petting his face and moved back down to pet his shoulders … and she picked him up and brought him back inside. I know she’ll be a lot more careful in the future so he doesn’t get outside until he really trusts us!
Ash got out today — and he’s really afraid of us outside. Hopefully he’ll come in again when it starts to get cold in a few days (20’s and 30’s overnight!)
Ash is still a very snuggly kitten. Anya spends a lot of time holding him — she will read a book while he sleeps (and sometimes she naps too … I always tell her you know you are getting old when a nap sounds like a good idea, so now she tells me she’s getting old!)
