A few weeks ago, I mentioned that our cat was pregnant. This is one of the farm cats that we inherited when we bought this farm so not exactly a tame cat. No one even lived here for 6 months before we bought it so these cats are true survivors and ran every time we walked out the door. I have slowly gotten the female cat tamed down a bit by feeding them our scraps (no garbage disposal) and could give her a pat or two while dumping the scraps into the pan.
We knew she was close to having her kittens but thought she would probably have them out in the barn and then we'd never get a chance to play with them and tame them down. That was, of course, if the tomcat didn't get them first.
Leah and I were walking in the back door this past Thursday and happened to see the mother cat under the back steps. Upon closer examination we saw that she had 4 kittens! We were SO excited (that is a complete understatement by the way)! My excitement immediately turned into panic when I realized that her nest was not exactly in a safe place. Her and the tomcat curl up under those steps and sleep all.the.time. What was she thinking?!?!? Didn't she know her "partner" didn't care that he was the father of those babies and would kill them as soon as he found them.....all he wanted was for her to come back into heat so he could....ya know. Sick isn't it? I tell ya, even male cats have one track minds.
As it turns out, she actually did a pretty smart thing. She must have known that a do-gooder (that's what Jason is calling me now) was living here now. He's just as guilty as I am though because he suggested moving her into our utility room until we could get her a safe place outside. An important side note here is that Jason is very allergic to cats. So, I managed to somehow lure this half-wild mother cat with newborn kittens into our house. I am still amazed at how easy it was and that I didn't end up scratched from head to toe. It really didn't take long for her to settle in either. We left her alone most of the time.....checking in now and then to give her food/water and make sure she was using the litter box (yeah, that was pretty important too!).
Here's where the story gets crazy. Saturday morning I give her some fresh food so she got out of her box to eat. I glance down at the mound of kittens and think to myself "Wow...they've really grown." Then I start counting heads......1, 2, 3, 4.......5, 6. What??? 1, 2, 3, 4.....5, 6!!! She had 2 more kittens about 24-36 hours after the first four. I immediately got on the internet and found out that cats can, in fact, stop their labor if they get disturbed. I think that is amazing!!
We had her in the house from Thursday evening until Sunday afternoon. Jason built an awesome hutch to keep her and the kittens in until they will be safe from the tomcat.
She seems pretty happy in her new setup and has become pretty tame too. She lets us pet her and the kittens and purrs very loudly as she curls up around her babies. It's so precious. I'm pretty sure if you looked up the definition of cute....you'd find a picture of a kitten!!
I haven't taken any pictures since the last two were born so this is just the four. I'm sure you'll be seeing plenty of kitten pictures so there's plenty of time for the last two to get some coverage!
