Photos from new homes

Nova (boy)


Morri (boy)


Win & Cubs (boys)


Betty


Lizzie

The last two girls are gone!

These two girls are going to continue to snuggle up in darling arrangements in their new home! The girls left July 13 for their new home in Henderson. I'm very sad to have a kitten-less house, and Posey, one of my 5 year old cats, is sorry to see her "minions" go. Our new puppy will miss them too, as will we, since they did a great job of wearing the zoominess out of him! Now my pet count is back down to . . . . 4 cats, 3 dogs, and 2 birds.

2 kittens left!!!!!!!!!

On Friday I made a new poster with these three girls on it. They are sweeties, and the girl in the middle was adopted on Sunday. Good luck in your new home, Lizzie!


Now I just need a home for sweet gray tabby girl, closest to the camera (and yes, they LOVE dogs!) . . . .


. . and this girl, original one I dubbed a tortoise shell, but have to change to torbie, as she is quite gray striped with orange splotches. These two girls really love each other and I find them in darling snuggling positions all over the house.

Yes, with the last two kittens, I have brought them inside, and they are loving it! They thought the garage was big after that shed, now they think my little house is a mansion.

On Thursday they will get their second shots.

Momma's still momma-ing

Momma still loves baby! (Honestly, though, he has something sticky on his head.)

New furnishings

We're about to go on a 6 day trip, so Eric took the back seats out of the van and covered them with a blanket. The kittens think the seats are GREAT! For either slumber or play, the kittens very much enjoy their new furniture.








The kittens often divide up , with this being 3 girls and 1 boy on one 'cushion' . . .

. . and 3 boys on the other.

Update: June 17

My garage is slowly emptying out. 7 kittens have gone to their new homes, and at least 3 more will be leaving on Saturday. The adopting families are sending me glowing reports of how well their kittens are doing and how friendly they are. Several of the kittens went to homes with dogs, other cats, a rat, and a two year old boy (probably the most frightening initially!), and all are getting along well with their new buddies.

Names that I know of: Biscuit (orange tabby boy) & Muffin (torby girl), Lola (orange tabby girl) & Snickers (torby girl), Betty (torby girl), and Nova (aka Magellan, head of the Gellies, gray tabby boy). The other orange tabby girl is waiting for a family member to come home from camp, but she is in her new home.

The girls were spayed on the 13th; they were almost as wild as the boys were when they came home. They all recovered well.

Only one kitten had any noticeable reaction to their vaccinations on the 9th; the boy I call "Silver Boy" (more light gray than the others) developed a limp and chills on Friday 13th; he had a low grade fever Saturday morning; and by Sunday he had fully recovered. He ate, drank, and played through it all, with long naps in between, and he did not require any other attention. In fact, I think he gained half a pound through it all!

We will probably have 3 girls left and possibly one boy.

Medical news

Momma Cat and the 5 remaining boys were spayed and neutered on Friday, June 6th. Everyone is recovering well, and they all have a short green line tattooed on their bellies to let anyone in the future know they have been spayed and neutered.

3 of the 14 have gone to their new homes. Two of the kittens were vaccinated on May 30 and had a very scary over-response of their immune systems, developing high fevers and painful joint inflammation. Their family took good care of them, and they are getting back to their hilarious antics.

I decided to go ahead and get everyone else vaccinated on my watch, so 10 days later (June 9) the remaining 11 kittens were vaccinated. I'll be keeping track of their temperatures (not much fun for me or the kittens) and be prepared to follow up with medication if necessary.

If all goes well this week, several kittens will be going to their new homes, and all of the remaining girls will be spayed. Most of the kittens are 2 lbs. or more; the littlest was 1.8 at the vet's office Monday, June 9.

Getting bigger

These kittens aren't too picky about toys . . a clothespin, a towel and a scrap of paper provide hours of entertainment! All the kittens seem to LOVE old shoes.


Anything on the floor becomes a kitten toy--including Pie! Those kittens who initially hissed at Pie are now happily climbing all over him and snuggling up with him


They discovered a new direction--up. They like to scale the kennel and sleep on top. Nothing is safe anymore!

May 31

Tabby boy likes Pie!

Black kitty tries to get Pie's attention.

Lots of fun with a cheap cat cube.

More evidence for Mother-of-the-year . . .

Bye, Bye, Bottles

There's a dish of milk under there somewhere . . . .

Chutzpa

I've not let our gigantic dog Tulip get too close to the kittens--she's very, very, very, very EXCITED about the kittens! I let her have a quick peek Tuesday afternoon, and all the big boys backed off, hissing. Then out comes the black kitten, the kitten I thought in the beginning was not going to make it. He ran right up to her big nose and rubbed. Tulip licked his head (she likes ears) and he leaned into it!

Paula Poundstone endorses the 14

We've had our Paula Poundstone tickets for weeks and weeks. Eric suggested we take a kitten poster to show her, as Paula herself is up to 11 cats (plus other species). The show was GREAT!!! Paula does an incredibly convincing imitation of a cat yakking. She endorsed the kittens with the following statement: "I'm Paula Poundstone. I endorse these kittens. Love, Paula Poundstone." If I were keeping one or two , I'd definitely call one Pound and another Stone!

Weight gains

I weighed just about everyone today, and they are all about 2 ounces heavier than Sunday.


Here's a version of the poster I made up to find homes for the kittens. I put the weights on (Sunday's measurements) to remember who's who. Eric improved it with great background colors--please, Cute Overload, isn't this cute? (Bigger version here
http://www.wideopenwest.com/~ericandorsarah/Kittens/kitten%20poster.htm .) They look like kitten baseball cards.

I've been keeping Momma and 4-5 babies in the garage to give her a break milk-producing-wise. I put everyone back in the shed and went to get formula. Here's what happened when I opened the door . ..


Here's a view of what it looks like when I look down in my lap before they eat.




The shed kittens began eating formula-soaked food. This is something that momma has to be away for, because she wants to eat all the food! Noticed the defensive paw placement.



This one's enjoying some canned food.



Once everyone got their fill of formula and kitten food, they fell asleep on my lap. Momma likes to hop on, too!


The shed kittens are beginning to play with toys!

Torbies

If Wikipedia says it, it must be true, right? I looked up calico cats and found ideal descriptions of our little grey striped, orange tinged girls--tortoise shell + tabby = Torby! I had the family at school today for a grounds working event and they were oohed and ahhed over, and everyone said they couldn't have one for one reason or another. I said that's fine, they aren't ready yet, this is a social event meant to generate interest.
A Torby girl--notice the yellow stripe mixed in with the gray.

We parked in the sun and I discovered another Torby; one of the Gellie girls has little bits of orange throughout her coat, and the place on her tummy where the stripes meet up has one section of pure orange stripes. There is one true tortoise shell in the bunch, but I would say all the others are very much torbies, tabby striped grey with orange bits.

A gray Tabby (on top) fighting a Torby (on bottom). What's the first rule of fight club again?

The pigmentation is a genetic thing carried on the X chromosome and the two colors, red (orange) and black (grey), require 2 alleles (??), and normal males are incapable of having 2 alleles, what with their Y chromosome and all, hence tortoise/calico coloring is extremely rare in males, and often the males cannot reproduce. Interesting if you're into gene stuff at all.

All 14 crashed out in the car by 11:00.

Everyone Pile On!

A view of kitten topography: bottle cliffs, lap land and momma valley.

This happens to Erin, too. I thought it was because everyone wants to eat, but this afternoon the kittens weren't that hungry, they just all crawled onto my lap. Momma chose to lean on me, but later on, she too tried to perch on top of them all.

Stumbly kittens playing

At the end, you'll see the black kitten (AKA 'Maker') dominate the playground.

More compelling evidence . . .

. . for Mother-of-the-Year

There are only 11 of the 14 total kittens in this movie!

Momma cat gets dry kitten kibble, several cans of Fancy Feast, a couple tablespoons of kitten formula, and Nutri-Cal every day. She needs supplementing, too!

Bottle feeding

When the kittens really latch onto the bottle and get a good drink, you know it by the ears--watch: