Raising Kittens @ MindSay

Yeah, I know it comes with the season. It IS November after all. Still, I'm never prepared for cold. I complain about this each year.

Walking to Savannah's school today was difficult. It was especially blustery which sends chills to my marrow!


Out my bedroom window you can see how my big maple has a lot of leaves still. The exact opposite is said about our trees in front of the house.


It looks so pretty you can hardly tell it's cold and windy.


Aww they are both smiling.

I think it's time to show the progress of the kittens. They are now one week old!


And boy are they getting pudgy!


Here is kitten number two. :) They are about the size of my hand now. I did take a picture for comparison but it turned out blurry.


Number one looks rather contented sitting in the sun on top of the gray one. He has the biggest tummy of all of the kittens.


Here's the momma licking her babies. They squealed and squirmed!


Finally here is "Scrapper".

I'm hoping to take a picture of them each week so that we can see the progression of their growth. Oh they are too cute!!!

We sure did a lot since the last time I blogged. I'll break up the pictures for today, tomorrow and possibly the next day.

Let's begin with one happy occasion! There has been a pretty gray stray kitty hanging around our house most of the summer. She looks very young and probably isn't even a year old. She was such a sweety!! It was agreed unanimously in our household that we should take her in. Here's the catch...she's pregnant.

We took her to the vet on Wednesday and gave her the preventive measures needed until she has her kittens.

On Thursday she began to hide in nooks and became very irritable with the other kitties. I knew that she was ready to have her kittens soon so I set up a "nest" in Leif's closet since it was private, quiet and no kitty really went in there. I set down an old blanket, heating pad and towel. I brought her to the closet and immediately she went in, lay down and began pawing the air happily on her back with a loud purr. I knew it was a hit and she would choose to have her kittens there. (At least I hoped)

On Friday Savannah had a few friends over for a sleepover. They were noisy and rambunctious. It was fun. I kept an eye on our newest addition and knew the time grew closer due to her new restlessness & sudden lethargy combination. Savannah was very excited because she had never seen a cat or anything give birth before.

Saturday was a busy day for us. We went to a friend's party for his son. The celebration was for his one year celebration of off treatment. His son was diagnosed with a rare brain tumor called AT/RT in 2006.

Then later that day we went to the Rotary Gardens for a "halloween walk". (Pictures to come soon)

When we got home Josh and I were about to go for a drive when Josh went and checked on the kitty. Sure enough she was in labor and just had one kitten!



After an hour she had two more kittens. The second one looked very similar to the first one.



The third took a little longer to be born. When it was born it squirmed and fought to breath. I was worried because it wasn't breathing for the first minute. I watched carefully and ready to intervene in case the Mama didn't do more. I sighed in relief when I saw his little chest rise and fall for the first time and let out a squeal. It's first sound ever! (We nicknamed that one Scrapper). ;)



When they are old enough we will be giving them away. We will make sure they all have their shots and all that is needed to go to a good home. I'm pretty sure we wont have a problem finding homes for them. :D

So many cute kitten photos are to come as they grow.

Byzantium has been wanting a kitten so we decided to start looking around for any feral ones to raise.

Today I took all my kitties to the vet. We had only three carriers so I had to hold Toady on my lap. The poor guy was panting and crying so I let him sit by my feet. He decided to wander and sat under Leif's legs. From that point he decided to poop out his stress. *gag*

Everyone got a clean bill of health and the Vet said that Tigger was the ideal cat! As she said "He has his high school body". haha. Hauling four kitties to the vet at once is a real... challenge. We made it somehow. I did ask our vet to keep an eye out for any ferals for us. :D

I went down to the barn with Byzantium tonight to look for any feral kittens. We found a kitten that seems to be only a week and a half to two weeks old. She wanted to take it tonight but Im going to have Leif pick up some formula and I want to schedule taking the kitten in to be dewormed, deflead and overall check-up. I will do that the same time we have to take Toady back to the vet because he has some teeth that need extracting and we are having Dudley de-clawed or put on gel-caps.

I have reservations of having kitties declawed because I know its basically taking the fingers off the cat. Dudley though is very... enthusiastic with his claws. He doesnt realize that he is tearing you to shreds. He never does it out of spite but, wow, his claws are sharper than any kitty's I know!


Byzantium said she would adopt a cat but its too expensive plus she wants to have influence over it so she decided on finding a kitten. So thats the dealy-poo going on.