KITTENS

Tuesday evening, Sheila's family joined us for supper, and Halie went out into the back yard when she was finished. Soon she came running back telling us there was kitty in the yard, and as we looked, it was following her! Probably 3-4 weeks old, white and light brown like its mother, with blue eyes and screaming as they do when suddenly moved. Evidently the mother was moving it into our backyard behind the tall bushy junipers, that she has napped under the past year since Homer left us. Halie scared the mother off, so Sheila and started looking for the rest of the litter. Found them in the shed next door. Owners had just moved out, so we put the baby back with the rest (5 all together, 3 white like the mama, one black and white, one gray and white).
Wednesday evening, the new owners of the house came, we talked and learned they were planning to demolish the shed with the kittens!....so, I rescued them, put them in a plastic container and moved to my shed, then to the junipers where I hoped the mama would return and stay with them, since she began to move them there anyway.
Well, when she returned, she began moving them somewhere else. After she had moved 3 of them, I went to make sure it wasn't the old shed again. They weren't there, thankfully. It gets down into the low 40's, upper 30's at night, so I was concerned they all were moved before I went to bed.
Well, it was after 11 pm, and 3 were left and hungry, so I brought them in to warm and feed them. I opened a can of evap milk, mixed a couple tablespoons with warm water in a little bowl, and let them have a go. They were so young that they were breathing it up their noses as they sucked on it. They managed to suck it all up. I cleaned them up, put them in a cardboard box with newspaper for added warmth, then returned them outside for mama. By 1am there was 1 left. By 1:30 it was still out there alone in the cold and screaming. Time for another feeding, and no mama. So, brought it in. I no longer have the little bottle and nipple I used to nurse other standed baby kittens, so got out a regular baby bottle, then dripped away onto my fingers and into its mouth. It caught on in a hurry, since it was probably starving. I put it back in the box, put a heating pad under the box, covered it, then took a nap on the couch for a couple hours. At 3am and 6:30 am we repeated the procedure. But after the 6:30am feeding, I spotted mama out in the yard waiting, so took a cup full of fresh cat food, with kitten in hand, filled her dish and placed kitten on ground next to it. Kitten screamed enough to alert the whole neighborhood, and mama FINALLY carried it off.
As long as they aren't in the shed next door today, they should be fine. I've prepared a place in our shed for them, in case mama decides to move them again, but even though I feed her every day, I have grandchildren that come and go, so she probably won't venture.