Bella and her kittens: good news and bad...

I'll get the bad news over with first: Matt's mom called today with the very sad news that two of Bella's kittens have died. Which is horrible but not entirely unexpected. I was astounded that she managed to even fit four babies inside her to begin with, and while of course hoping they would all live once they were born, I was not optimistic that they would all make it past the critical 2-week period. I never really know what to say about this sort of thing other than reporting the facts and acknowledging how sad those facts are, but believe me, despite their short lives I will not ever forget those tiny cats. I am glad they at least got to smell the dirt and the leaves under the blackberry bramble and to know the warmth of nestling with their siblings.

Okay before I start crying my eyes out here...I'll get to the good news. Which is that Matt's mom has managed to coax Bella into the house! She is there in the same fostering crate that Jack used when he was a baby -- with her two remaining offspring. Who by all accounts are doing well and "nursing constantly". I will get to go see them tomorrow evening and provided nothing changes between now and then, there will hopefully be more pictures of adorableness to behold. I am really, really rooting for this little family, and quite relieved that despite RRRRRR-ing at all approaching humans, Bella is reportedly eating a lot and starting to relax. We will let her nurse the babies and otherwise care for them without being bothered for at least a few weeks, and then bring her in for spaying. Then will come the task of finding adoptive homes for the babies -- the person who originally expressed interest has backed out, but I am determined that we will find the right person or people to take on these little ones.

When kittens have kittens

Feline reproduction evolved in harsh desert environments where, despite being predators themselves, small cats tended to become the prey of larger animals. Being able to produce many offspring starting at a very young parental age was necessary in order for the survival of the species. Needless to say, the modern human-populated environs many cats today call home are a far cry from those their ancestors lived in. Which is one reason there are so many feral cats.

So, as I've written before, in the absence of any evidence that cats are banding together to start their own family-planning clinics. it falls to us -- the humans who share communities with them -- to help them out in this department. Mind you, I wish there was some way to do it that did not involve surgery, but the way things are now, the consequences for cats of not being spayed or neutered are frankly tragic. I won't go into any graphic descriptions here, as I'm sure most readers already know what I am talking about, but suffice to say that I would be totally fine with calling a moratorium on "breeding" cats until all the existing  ones get homes.

But I digress. The title of this post refers to a situation that I've seen happen -- or almost happen -- more than once in the local colony. Right now there's a beautiful, TINY tabby cat named Bella (Matt named her, and no, he was not making a 'Twilight' reference!) who currently looks like she's managed to swallow a whole cantaloupe. Unfortunately I have no pictures of her yet but I will try and get one. According to Matt's mom, Bella has been hanging around the house a lot lately (very common when female cats are 'nesting' -- even feral ones will tend to become much braver around humans if they see putting up with us as a sensible tradeoff for the safety of their babies).

I don't know how old she is, but probably under a year -- I'd guess seven months or thereabouts.  She's one of the little females that managed to evade the last round of trapping, and who then seemed to disappear for a while, only to show up quite thoroughly gravid. Still, her overall body size (aside from her belly) looks like that of about a typical four month old kitten, probably because this is not even her first litter. She's had at least one prior to this, though Matt's mom found the resultant kittens after they were born and they appeared to have either been stillborn or just too small to have managed to live a day.

But in any event, while I know some cats are just genetically small, I suspect that Bella's size is largely due to growth attenuation caused by early pregnancy and consequent nutrient deprivation. I have no idea if this impending batch of kittens will be born viable but either way, I plan on making sure it is her last litter...that way she might at least get to finish growing up herself. All I can think of when I see her is how there but for the grace of chance goes Cora -- who herself first went into heat at a mere 4 months of age!

I didn't want to write this update.

...but I got the news from Matt's mom earlier today that Blue didn't make it through the night. He went into what sounded like some sort of respiratory crisis, which makes me suspect he probably had pneumonia or even heartworm.

He tested negative for FIV and FeLV but apparently something else -- something we couldn't see or diagnose in time -- was wrong. He may well have been sick even before he and Dominique and Michelle showed up in December. And it could be he got exposed to some random germ at the clinic during neutering which he couldn't fight off due to an already weakened immune system. And he could have been much older than all of us thought.

At this point there's no way to know for sure. I keep wanting to blame myself anyway -- as in, maybe I should have pushed to get the runny eyes checked out prior to taking him to the TNR clinic. But given I've seen many, many cats with runny eyes turn out just fine it just didn't occur to me that Blue's condition could be that serious. And the clinic people apparently didn't notice anything egregriously amiss either. So whatever it was, it only reached critical badness levels over the past two days. And none of the other cats seem to have similar symptoms right now so I doubt it's going to turn into some horrible epidemic.

In any case I guess I am at least glad Blue got to see "his kittens" to the colony, where they will both hopefully go on to lead much longer, healthier, and happier lives now that they've been spayed and (by the looks of it) accepted into the feline social network.

I wish Blue had gotten to enjoy a "new lease on life" for more than the few months he spent with the colony, but I imagine he was glad to spend the time there that he did.

Rest in peace, sweet Protector of Kittens. You will be missed.

[Oh and BTW just because I realized the date just after initially posting this...I would NEVER EVER write something like this as an "April Fool". That would just be horrendously evil.]

Some Sad News...

(Warning: this very well might make you cry.)


I just got word this evening (from Matt's mom) that one of Rosie's babies died today -- the little darker grey tabby (pictured below, while still alive a few days ago).



We don't know what was wrong, but we did notice a few days ago that this kitten seemed to be nursing less than the others, wasn't as round in the belly, and was sort of sitting apart from the rest of the family more often than the other kittens were. It is just so hard to tell, when kittens are this young, whether how they're acting is due to being ill or due to just random variation.

But in any case, gah, it is very saddening that this little one didn't make it.

When I heard the news I immediately went and found my (rapidly growing-up) kittens and gave them scritches and told them how glad I was that they'd all survived those perilous first few weeks of infancy.

So, yeah, not exactly the happiest evening ever. Two weeks of life spent snuggled up with Mom and siblings in a nice warm, dry nest is better than no life at all, but still. Kittens have it tough in the beginning, being as tiny and vulnerable as they are, and anyone involved in any degree or type of cat rescue is going to experience the loss of some, but that doesn't make it any easier when it does happen (nor should it).

Rest in peace, little one. I am so sorry you never got to explore much of the amazing world you were born into.