A House Full of Cats

Our adopted feral stray cat gave birth to 4 kittens the last week of April.  








I wrote a post about finding them and that I decided to bottle feed them so I could find homes for them. http://charlottesmenagerie.blogspot.com/2012/05/surprise-on-my-doorstep.html

Well, I was successful in finding homes for all 4 kittens. My daughter, who lives just one house from me, took 2, Mittens and Cirus. Steve, a fellow school board member, adopted Panther, the first kitten I found on the doorsteps. 

 But July is time for summer vacations and guess who was asked to kitten sit.  That's right, 3 kittens returned to spend the week with me. 

Mittens enjoyed lying right by the oven so I had to be careful not to step on her.

Panther spent most of the week being carried around by Kennedy.

 

 

Cirus was the most laid back kitten.  He enjoyed long naps on the sofa.

My cat, Cloud, took the responsibility of Kitten Sitter.  He never took his eyes off of them.

  I truly enjoyed the week because I missed the little rascals, but don't want to have them all the time.  Kind of like having grandchildren.  Love on them a while and send them home.

And Now there Are 4!

It's been 9 days since I found the little black kitten on my door step.  I had a school board meeting at 4:30 that afternoon and asked the other board members if anyone wanted a bottle fed kitten. 




One board member, Steve, spoke up quickly and said he did. 


 So all I have to do is take care of it for a few weeks and he has a new home!  I call him Panther.


I remained on the lookout for the rest of the litter.  I've never known a cat to have just one kitten.  I was worried that maybe something had happened to the others, so that was why Panther was on my step.

Thursday, I was in the garage-barn when I saw the feral momma cat run out.  I started looking around in the area where she came from and there in a tall box were 3 more kittens.

Cirus, Shameka, Tiffany Lynn Mittens

See what looks like I just left trash in the garage-barn turned out to be a kitten cradle.  You have to know how I irritate my dear husband by not promptly throwing things away; even empty boxes.

 One little female, with the white paws and a white wishbone mark across her nose, didn't have either of her eyes opened yet.  So I believe they are 8-12 days old.  The others, each,  had one eye open.

Daddy Gus and Momma Blackie

 Another mystery was solve too.  Who's the daddy?  Well I researched and read that a litter of kittens can have more than one sire, but we have good evidence that my husband's outside cat, Gus was not "fixed" before he reproduced at least one offspring.

See the grey one with the white nose--Gus Jr.  Chase named him Cirus

There's a neighborhood cat that has markings like this one.  Could he be a daddy?

Anyway, I now have 3 more kittens to find homes for.  The grandkids are trying to keep Cirus, the grey kitten.  Their mom wants Mittens, the black and white one.  I named her Tiffany Lynn Mittens, but my daughter doesn't like that name.  She wants it to just be named Mittens.

My house cat, Cloud, is not happy about the kittens.

Well, we are having fun with them.  But I've found that bottle feeding 4 little kittens leaves very little time for anything else.