So we are still cleaning up the gardens and lawn, mainly by raking all the leaves. I went behind the garage this afternoon to get another garbage can, and was stunned to see this scene! It is 5 newly born kittens, less than a week old, I think. They are lying on polyester fill that was torn out of an old cushion that was back there. I could not believe my eyes! How strange for a mother cat to have her kittens out in the open like that! I showed Kathy, and she was stunned - yesterday, it seems, she went behind the garage, and grabbed an upside down garbage can and walked away. It is apparent that THAT can was covering the kittens! She never noticed. So they were out in the open all of last night! Well, with their mother covering them up as much as she could. And the forecast for tomorrow is heavy rain! Yikes, how would they survive that? The mother was nowhere in sight - we think she was out hunting for food. So I used some bricks for spacing and put the garbage can back over them. Then we put some food and water out for the mother, and I covered that with a small sheet of plywood, to protect the food from rain. At about suppertime, I saw the mother cat - she looks just like the little white and gray babies - sitting on the patio, looking around to see if it was safe, I think, before going behind the garage to sneak under her empty trash can home, and feed her babies. Wow, they sure are cute... It's a slippery slope, isn't it!
3 comments:
Awwh, Mother kitty was resourceful tearing your cushion apart and finding a safe place behind the garage. Happy you are also resourceful and could make things better for them. So cute!
Joan
Glad you took care in making sure the mother and kitties were safe. Please, please, please take it one more important step and call a shelter that will collect the kitties and take them for adoption. If the mother is a feral cat, please contact these people:
lasthopeanimalrescue.org/fix-a-feral-program
They practice the TNR - trap-neuter-release program and it sounds like the mother needs this.
Unless you're going to take in all of these cats, they need to be adopted to forever homes or they'll be in harm's way trying to exist on the outside. Please do this for this sweet family of kitties.
Anonymous: Thanks so much for this advice. We have a neighbor who suggested doing exactly this, but we didn't know where to start, and so I really appreciate the link to the organization.
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