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A Kitten for Raising


Beocat

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So, recently our sweet Nighthawk (who trusts us to give her food but that's about it) gave birth to her second litter of the year in our own backyard.  Nighthawk has been with us...for quite a while now.  Back in the day, when the fox was hunting Momma Cat's kittens, I ended up saving the three that were left (sadly, I didn't check our front door the night before for the first kitten :(  ) which became our sweet little girlsI thought that would be the last time that I raised a kitten.  I thought wrong.  So Nighthawk was part of Momma Cat's second litter that year and since she has blessed us with three somewhat surviving litters to watch over (she's wiley...tried and failed to catch her) and in the last one she went and abandoned a little kitten.  

 

Now I know to watch and wait...13 hours later, the kitten was still here and crying and Nighthawk had come and gone for her lunch....  The kitten was truly abandoned.  I am probably the least mothering of any woman out there.  This whole taking care of babies thing is really difficult for me.  I plowed through it, nursing the dehydrated kitten back to hydration (just holding my breath that he would survive the weekend) and took him in for a check up with the vet on Monday.  Perfect health...no fleas even (because they all jumped off of him and onto me....  I told my husband...in a sour tone...that I must be key lime pie to those blasted bugs).  Well, now I'm just trying to get him through another weekend.  He is super strong (and fast...).  He also has an unfortunate habit of climbing up my clothes, running off my hand when I'm feeding him (in a crazed rush to eat...makes no sense but this kitten is pretty insane at times) and fell off my lap earlier today.  I don't think he's actually hurt from it, but I'm keeping a good watch on him (I think he was more sore from it than anything else).  Now he's scratching his face open (I've noticed him clawing his face when he eats all the time but...now he's drawing blood -- trying to wrap him up in a paper towel when I feed him now...keep him from running and clawing himself).  v_v  Tough times.  He was 11 days old when we brought him in...18 days old now (almost to the almighty 3 week milestone).

 

 

Well, I am barely sleeping here folks so wish me luck.  Some day I'll post a picture of this cutey (maybe after he/she stops clawing at her poor whiskers).  Our cat Aida wants to adopt him (tried to take him from me 5 times today --- she'd actually be better for him than me but he must be dewormed first!) so hopefully in another week or so when we can start the deworming, I can get some furry help around here with this. 

 

My husband is trying to understand (he has to turn off the tv for 15-20 minutes after I feed him so he can fall asleep...at least he's down to every 4 hours now as opposed to every 2-3 hours)….  I've started calling the kitten "my kitten"....so maybe the girls at the vet are right in that I probably won't be able to rehome him for bonding with him too much...we'll just have to see.  Been thinking up names...maybe I'll run a poll for it...I have trouble deciding on names. 

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Oh, that's awesome you're doing that! Years ago, my family and I used to look after a group of yard cats (as we called them). We used to have these neighbours who owned a cat and it turns out that she got pregnant. Rather than taking responibility for a pregnant cat, they abandoned her when they moved away. She took shelter under the shed in our yard. We didn't think much of it, and we didn't realize she was pregnant, it wasn't uncommon for cats to hang out in strangers' yards. We thought she belonged to our NEW neighbours, who happened to have a cat with similar markings. One day, she's lying far down the yard, basking in the sun, when she stands up and three kittens go running and playing all over the place, they had been sleeping on her and we couldn't see them when she was lying down lol. Soon, we realize this mum cat (and thus, her name became Mum Cat) was living in our yard. So we go over to the neighbours and ask them about their cat. Not only is their cat sitting on the stairs, theirs is a boy! It didn't take us long to realize the old neighbours had left her behind. The SPCA wouldn't come to get Mum Cat and her babies, unfortunately it's quite poorly run here. And we certainly weren't about to let them die. Unfortunately, Mum Cat, once a domesticated kitty, had turned a bit feral, and the babies were born feral. They wouldn't come to us, but we could feed them and make sure the birds didn't steal the food. Eventually they got comfortable with us. Being unfixed cats, and ourselves owning an unfixed, outdoor, male cat, you can easily deduce that the yard cat family...grew. Only one of the original three kittens survived the first winter and Felicks (our cat) had a tendency to chase off any other males. The only male cat he didn't chase off was the only one that lived out of the first litter, who we started to call Oscar. Years went by, and by the end of it all, we were looking after around 21 wild cats (NO ONE had rat problems in our neighbourhood lmao). At this point, Felicks and Oscar are starting to get quite up there in years, but they still look after the family. We had been consistently trying the entire time to get the SPCA to come help us. Sadly, what made the SPCA finally come, and what Oscar and Felicks couldn't protect the family from, was poison. Six of the cats were found dead due to someone leaving poison out for them. One of those cats was found by one of our neighbours' little girls, she was like...4 years old. We made sure Felicks stayed inside for a few days so he wouldn't get caught up with the rest of the cats, and the SPCA came and did their thing. The managed to catch all but one of the cats, Oscar. Oscar was gone, he just vanished. Living in an area with coyotes and cougars (and bears, but they don't bother kitties), we assumed the worst. Fortunately, almost all of the cats captured were able to be domesticated and all but two of them found new homes. The two that couldn't be domesticated got sent to a cat sanctuary for wild cats, so they could live outside and be comfortable. And then a few months after it all happened, we see a cat lounging in the yard, it's none other than Oscar himself. He ran away when the SPCA came, and then came back when he felt it was safe. He remained with us (albeit in the yard) for several years afterwards. 

Sorry for the super long comment! I'm just very fond of all those cats. Felicks has been gone for years now, and Oscar we can only hope the best for him (we weren't able to capture him and take him with us when we moved out of town, so we let the SPCA know what's up and hopefully he found a good home). And then our indoor cat (who lives with mum), Mollie, she'll be 17 in March (all skin and bones and a little senile, but it's looking like she'll live for another ten years. That's a siamese for you)

Aaaaanyway, I think it's awesome you've taken that kitten in :)

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