Intruducing Hope and Her Ten Kittens

Foster mom, Jen, took in a pregnant cat from a shelter a couple weeks ago.  An x-ray showed possibly eight kittens, probably within two or three days.  She looked ready to pop.  She was way bigger than Elsa was with her eight kittens.  No way would she make it two days longer.  Well, mama Hope didn't get the email because she went over a week longer and had her kittens Saturday night.  Jen hadn't seen kittens being delivered and was looking forward to the experience.  Aunt Barb was on standby, and standby, and standby. 

Jen checked on Hope about 6pm on Saturday night, and all was fine.  She checked again at 10pm and there were eight kittens in the box!  Jen was changing the towels and heard a slurping sound as #9 came out.  She changed towels again and #10 came out.

I've never heard of a cat having 10 kittens.  I'm sure they have, many times.  I've just never heard of it.  I had a litter of eight kittens here two months ago.  Now Jen has 10.  Heartland sure does like to grow them big.

 Beautiful Hope with her babies.

The kittens will learn how to eat in shifts.  Mom only has eight nipples.

 The kittens are about 15 hours old.

 This is all 10 kittens, but it's hard to tell the individuals.  All are black, white and gray.

 The vet techs shaved Hope's tummy when she had her x-ray.  It helps the babies find the nipples easier.

Jen has a digital scale and reports that most kittens have doubled or tripled their birth weight in three days.

 One of Hope's nipples was inverted - pushed inside and not usable.  I tried to gently squeeze it out like popping a pimple, but it didn't work.  I tried to put a kitten on it and have it sucked out, but that didn't work, either.  Jen also reported today that it's fine now, so someone did suck it out.  Probably a very hungry determined kitten.

From day one, a kitten will hold a sibling off with one paw while eating.  The universal sign for, "Bug off."

This beautiful little girl is Jen's daughter, Samantha.  She's a very lucky girl to be around all the cats and kittens they have.

Kittens Named

It was very hard to give names to the orange kittens.  I couldn't think of eight name I liked, and there aren't TV shows or movies that have five girls and three boys as leads.  So I picked several of my favorites.


The orange kittens, three boys and five girls are Callan, Deeks, Julius (his new mom named him), Kensi, Nell, Hetty (NCIS:LA) and Jane and Maura (Rizolli and Isles).  After 150 cats and kittens, you look for names anywhere you can find them.  Callan, Julius, Nell, and Maura have been adopted.

This is Jane.  The basket was just something laying around the house and got played with.  It ended up in a kitten room and has become a favorite toy.  The handle is only attached on one side, now.

 Jane, again.  Her hair is a little longer and she's a little more red.

Mama Elsa with her seductive come hither look.

Kensi.

 

I've named the Tent City orphans, two girls and one boy, Abby, Ziva, and Gibbs (NCIS).  Abby is the calico in back, Gibbs is the gray tabby in front, and Ziva is the tortie on the right.

 

  Jane and Hetty.
 
 

 Abby being her cute adorable self.

Ziva on the recliner.  Ziva's tummy is shaved because she, Abby, and Gibbs got their package last week and are now available for adoption.  

Kensi and Gibbs playing.

 

 

Ziva playing with the ever-popular basket.



Abby.

 

Abby in back and Gibbs in front.

Winfield Kittens

This is an exerpt from an email I sent another foster  mom when I got home from the vets on Tuesday afternoon.  I saw no reason to retype everything.

Okay, so I was minding my own business at Pet Docs, taking Shari, the snowshoe, to be scanned and tested, and mama Elsa a fecal.  Two teenage girls walked in with a box.  Can the vet's office take the six kittens?  They found the box with the kittens in it by the side of the road by Winfield.  Tiffany and Jessie said they were filled to the max - the storage room and all the kennels were full.  And then they looked at me.  And then I looked at the kittens.  Crap.  They were pretty small.  Some looked like 3 weeks, sickly and scrawny, some like 4 weeks and healthy.  A couple with crusty eyes, but all their ears were clean and no visible fleas.  I said if the techs would test them, I'd take them.   After the girls left, Tiffany and Jessie both said the girls were lying and the kittens were theirs.  I fell for it.

They tested two, and they were negative, but the others were too dehydrated to get a blood sample.  So, I brought them home, Bottle fed everyone, did an hour of power cleaning, put Shari, the snowshoe, in my room, put Elsa and the kittens in Shari's room, and the new kittens in the nursery.   Gave all of them a bath and put them in a tub on the deck, partially in the sun to dry.  After just a few hours, they're like new kittens.  I think they might be two separate litters.  

One of the older three.  I think a little boy.

  You know how I love the gray tabbies.

 Also an older one, a calico girl.

 The other older one, and I don't remember if it's a boy or girl.















These are all three of the older kittens.

 "You wanna keep that paw?"

Since I bottle feed the younger three, they all run to me as soon as I come into their room.

The diluted gray calico is a younger little girl.  A lady and her four-year-old daughter came over today to see Abby, the calico in with the orange kittens.  They played with them for a while and I mentioned I had gotten some younger kittens since I had talked to her and would she like to see them.  Almost as soon as she saw the little dilute calico, she fell in love.  She knows the kitten won't be available for a month, and that's okay.  I said they could visit whenever she liked.


I have 17 kittens 3-10 weeks old.  I'm crazy, I know.  As cute as they are, kittens are pigs.  I've been cleaning so much my hands look like dry shredded paper.  I sweep the nursery in the morning, wipe up spots and smears of poop because they drag their tails through it after they go, then walk around and get it all over the floor, and by evening it looks like I haven't cleaned in a week.  And I get to clean it all over again.  Then, I get to hold and play with these soft little bundles of fur.  They lick my nose and chin and start purring against my neck.  And I don't feel so crazy anymore.

Madeline, Shari, and Kittens

On a happier Memorial weekend note, Madeline came up Friday for the weekend, too. for a grandson's baseball tournament and stayed here.  She wanted to sleep with kittens, so I put the three orphans, Abby, Ziva, and Gibbs, in her room, but they didn't get on the bed and sleep with her.  But she had plenty of kittens to play with. 

This wasn't the first time Elsa or the kittens had been out of the room.  At least two kittens escape and run down the hall every time I go in the room.  But, this was the first time I opened the door intentionally.  Bizarre!  Nobody wanted to come out.

 Lucy wanted to see what was going on.  There was some hissing at first, but after five minutes, the kittens ignored her.

 At this point, nobody had a name except the fluffy buff boy.  His future mom named him Julius.

 The calico is Abby, and is spoken for.




 




















Then, Sunday, one of John's patients brought over a stray cat they found a couple weeks ago.  It was very friendly and got along with her dog and other cat and slept with her last night.  The only available room was Madeline's.  So, while she was gone to another ballgame Sunday afternoon, Wanda and Jim brought the cat over that they'd named Shari.  Madeline's door had been opened for a few hours and had the three orphans and four of the orange kittens playing in it.

Shari was pretty scared being around seven rowdy kittens, so I put all the orange kids away in their own room.  The three orphans are a couple weeks younger and much quieter than the oranges, so they got to stay.  

I'd never see a cat like Shari before and thought she was a very oddly-marked cat.  After showing her picture to Cheri and Lisa, they said she was a Snowshoe.  It's a Siamese mix and they have four white feet.  Wanda and Jim had put up signs all around their neighborhood for Shari because they knew she was someone's pet.  She was very friendly, got along with their two cats, and smelled like baby powder.  Nobody called about her in two weeks.  I had her tested (negative) and no chip or spay scar was found.  She'll go in next week for that and then will be available for adoption.

Memorial Weekend Company

I found the following partial blog marked as a draft, meaning I hadn't finished and published it.  This goes way back to Memorial Day weekend in May.  Sorry.

I was planning on having weekend guests Memorial weekend.  My brother, Steve, and his wife Judy, drove up from Dallas, stopped in Chester to see our mom, then to my house on Thursday evening.  It was wonderful seeing them again.  Friday morning at 6:30 Judy got a call that her sister's son was in a car accident in Oklahoma.  He was driving at 3am with his buddy and both their girlfriends on a country gravel road and hit a tree.  The girl in the back seat wasn't wearing her seat belt, went through the front windshield and was killed.  The nephew has a fractured neck but they don't think he'll be paralyzed, but one of his arms is badly damaged.  The guy in the backseat was okay, but the girl in the front seat was hurt pretty bad.  The first cop on the scene didn't get a pulse on her and left her for dead, but she came to a while later.

Steve and Judy were just coming up the stairs Friday morning when I got up about 8:30.  He was taking her to the airport for a flight to Oklahoma.  What a scary day for her.  Steve stayed here, packed up some of mom's furniture and things in a U-Haul and left for OK Saturday morning.  In one of his updates, Judy hadn't slept more than an hour in almost two days.  As of last night, the nephew was to be released - last night!  He'll have surgery on his arm next week.  I guess it takes more than an fractured neck and a severely lacerated arm to get to stay more than two days in a hospital!

My heart goes out to Judy, her sister, her poor nephew and all the kid and families involved.  I just can't imagine what that's like.

Saturday Photo Hunt - Taste

I haven't done a Photo Hunt for a month or so, but today's word was easy.  Last Nov, I made some Chocolate Covered Cherry Jello Shots for a quilting retreat.  OMG, were they good.  The blog and recipe are from Nov of 2011 under Chocolate Covered Cherry Jello Shots.  Enjoy.

Kittens Help Make the Bed

Changing bed sheets is a pain, but I had help today.  The kittens love playing on the bed.  You wouldn't believe how much litter they save between their toes to leave like presents on my sheets. I brush it off every night and it's back the next night.

Like I said yesterday, the room is just one big playground.

 This is my help changing the sheets.

 Who needs stairs when you can just climb up the side?


 There was a mysterious lump under the top sheet as I was making the bed.


 



 

He found his way out.

This little one was watching the silly antics of his siblings from the best seat in the house - the back of the chair.

I am so fed up with Blogger!!!  They did a "new and improved" version a couple weeks ago.  Since then, I can't always put text next to the photo.  It's under the picture below it.  I can't put the photos in the right order.  I can't get things to look right on the page.  What I type in the "draft" box isn't anything like it is after I click on "publish."  It's so frustrating!  Why can't we just enter things the way it will look on the blog?   Anyway, I'm sorry.  The caption about the kitten climbing up the side of the bed will NOT go by the picture and I don't know how or what to do.  Is anyone else having this problem with Blogger?  I'm using a template and not designing from scratch. 

Gotta go play with kittens and get my blood pressure down.

Elsa's Kittens At 7 Weeks

I can't believe it's been three weeks since my last blog.  I've been busy, frazzled, and exhausted.  Mom moved to an assisted living facility 100 miles away last Thursday.  The facility is "back home," and she knows some of the other residents.  Unless you've been through this, you can't imagine how much is involved in settling legal matters, moving details, and just sorting and packing up only what she needed.  She's moving from 3000 sq. ft. to 500 sq ft.  Realistically, an 82 year old woman who embroiders quilt blocks, watches TV, and plays her piano doesn't need more than a living room, bedroom, kitchenette, and one bathroom, not three.  My sister, Sue, and I did the packing.  The hard part was letting mom help.  She couldn't remember what was in a box, even though it was labeled, and would open and unpack it.  She wanted ALL of her clothes.  The woman could wear a different outfit every day, throw them away, and be set for a year.  Clothes we hadn't seen her wear in 10 years were suddenly her favorite clothes in the world that she wore all the time.  Even pre-Alzheimers is a bitch.

Okay, now to kittens.  Besides having Elsa's eight orange kittens, I split a litter of six orphaned kittens with another foster mom, Jen.  There's an area in downtown St. Louis called Tent City, where tents were set up for homeless people.  The city decided to closed it down, and animal control set about finding rescue groups to take the animals.  This litter did have a mom, but she was so feral, they couldn't trap her.  The kittens are about a week younger than Elsa's.

I met Jen and the six kittens at the vets a week ago.  The kittens tested negative for feline leukemia and aids.  The tech's made sure we knew that the calico and gray/white ones were not happy campers - evident by the hissing, spitting, biting and clawing from the carrier.  Great.  I told Jen if she took the black one and two others, I'd take the two spitters and one other.  They spent the first five days at my house in a large crate calming down.  The third day, I could put a washcloth over them and pick them up with just a little hissing and spitting.  Day four we were cuddling and reading together.  Day six, I put them in with Elsa and crew.  By the end of that first day in Elsa's room, the new kids went from shy, scared hissers to playing with the orange gang, eating with them and even nursing on Elsa.  It just made me all warm and fuzzy inside.  

 This is a gray and white tabby boy.  He was one of the spitters and was half hiding when introduced to Elsa's room.  Not that I blame him.  The orange kids are very active and intimidating.

This black and tan tortie is a little girl and is the friendliest of the three.  She's a sweetie.

This beautiful calico is a girl and also one of the spitters.  All three are very friendly now and are playing with all their new brothers and sisters in the room.

They don't have names, yet.  I like to know more about their personality before I name them.

 Isn't she just adorable?

It's hard to get good pictures of black cats where they don't look scared to death.

 The kittens are getting so big.  Three are tentatively spoken for.  Two of the buffs and the fluffy orange.  The fluffy buff in front is one spoken for and his new mom has named him Julius.

 Nothing is safe in the room.

King of the Hill

This used to be a wastebasket.  The lid kept cats and kittens from getting into it.  Now, it's a cave.  I have the lid secured so it won't trap anyone inside.

 Everything is a toy or playground equipment.

I had to add an additional litter box.  Eight kittens produce a considerable amount of pee and poop.

I prefer to use storage boxes as litter boxes.  They're larger, taller, and have square corners that a scoop fits into.  John cuts out the doors for me.

I also added some new beds.  I'll get some new covers made for them soon.  Much easier to wash a cover than the whole bed.



The current arrangement in the nursery.  The cardboard box is their baby box and home for the first four weeks. I cut some of the top off, turned it upside down, and put a bed in it.

The box is also a nice step onto the shelves.  What was I thinking???

 The tortie is sleeping with her head on the calico's back.

 This is the playground.  Everything is climbed on, jumped off of, or used as a way of getting to something higher.

The round orange and blue things are track-ball toys.  At three weeks old, the kittens figured out how they worked and how to play with them.

This is 8 of the 11 kittens in the bedroom and nursery closet. World leaders could learn something from kittens about getting along together.  The other three kittens are sleeping on the shelves on piles of my "clean" sheets and towels.

Elsa's kittens will be ready for adoption in two weeks!  The new three will be ready in three weeks.