Ahhh...adoption. We captured several feral kitties that we had been feeding. They learned to come to the back porch, and then into the back door, to get food, and we shut them in. We got 5 over two days. Age guesses are from Nov 25th, the time of capture.
Faith and Hope, two little gray sisters, barely weaned. About 6 weeks old
Tyler, an older gray male. 10-12 weeks old.
Skyler, an older gray and white male. He has a black sibling who we have been unable to capture. 8-10 weeks old.
Grace, an adult gray female, who is Faith's and Hope's mom. She is quite wild and we could never touch her and finally let her go. She still comes by to say hi through the window but we can't get her to come inside again. We'll try to capture her later to get her fixed.
A week later we captured Opal, who I believe is Faith's and Hope's sister. She is also pretty wild and never came up for food in the month I got to know the others. She bites and scratches but will allow you to pet her (she'll hiss though). She may never be tamed.
There is another older, larger, black kitten we also can't capture.
We discovered the kittens existed at the end of October 2003, just after our dear Chaka was killed. Over the next few weeks we discovered more and more of them.
We captured Grace and the 4 kittens over a period of two days, Nov 24-25.
We got Opal on Dec 2. We let Grace go shortly after that.
On Dec 10 we took all 5 kittens to the vet's because we relayed some of their symptoms (3 with eye goo and at least one with very bloody diarrhea) to the vet and she thought they might have some horrible disease. They don't, though they all had fevers and upper respiratory infections and are now on antibiotics. Also on that day, Faith suddenly developed a prolapsed rectum. Three inches hanging out of her. We rushed to the vet's and, after manual efforts to put it back failed, the only options were surgery or death. She did well with the surgery and came home Dec 13.
 |
 |
|---|---|
|
These kitties love to hide. First it was behind the
dryer (left) and then it was between the freezer and the wall (right).
They really are stacked up on top of each other. The picture is rightsideup.
|
|
 |
|
|
Slowly, they came out of their hiding places. Up top
is Tyler (I think) and Grace. On the bottom is Hope (I think), Faith,
and Skyler.
|
|
 |
|
|
And then there were six. We acquired Opal after a
week.
Grace is at the bottom. The rest, from left to right, are: Faith, Hope, Tyler, Skyler, Opal. |
|
 |
|
|
I believe this is Faith. Some of them are hard to
tell apart.
|
|
 |
|
|
Same kitty as above. Faith I think.
|
|
 |
|
|
Skyler and Tyler
|
|
 |
|
| We let Grace go at this point and moved the kittens to the bathroom so we could clean the kitchen/laundry room. When I went in to check on them, Skyler was below the frame of the picture, behind the toilet, and the rest were on the windowsill. From left to right: Opal, Hope, Faith, Tyler. | |
 |
|
 |
|
| This is how we sealed off the laundry room danger zones with boxes, cardboard, and a lot of tape. The kitties were safe behind the washer and dryer but unreachable without moving the appliances around. But 12/13 Faith went over the top of the water heater, into the corner, and became so stuck it us 2 hours to free her. Not fun. | |