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Bouncing bits--my feline children
Bouncing bitties--raising feline "children"
Between Smokey and Nocturne, my partner and I thought we had sufficient cats for a two-bedroom apartment. In the summer of 2003, I was on military service, he was finishing his masters' degree, and we were three weeks away from moving halfway across the country...when he found a pair of three week old kittens sitting on a styrofoam slab next to the trash behind his school's loading dock. The bitties (itty bitty kitties) were just sitting there--no nest, no mother, no bed, no one around--as if the sky had opened and dropped them there. Obviously he couldn't leave them, and the local animal shelter was overflowing with up to 30 unwanted cats dropped off per DAY. That is not a good circumstance to hope you'll find someone with money, time, and ability to handraise kittens that young. So he put them in a syringe box and carried them home (a walk of over an hour since he got kicked off the bus for having animals.) Next he went on the internet and learned how to care for them--how to bottlefeed, how to keep them warm, how to use a cottonball to assist them in urinating and defacating, etc. After feeding, cottonballing, bathing, drying, preparing a box, and putting the bouncing bits in, he emailed me to inform me the cat population of the apartment had doubled. I drew a leave pass and came home to take the bits to the vet for a checkup, where they pronounced us caretakers of two healthy infants. They also said they were too young to adopt out for five more weeks...ie, after the move. So...my partner wrote his masters' thesis with a lapful of infant kittens, and then three weeks later he drove halfway across Canada with kittens in the shotgun seat of his car, feeding and cottoning them every three hours at rest stops and gas stations. (while I followed with Smokey and Nox in my car). Nocturne was /exceedingly/ unimpressed by the kittens, and avoided whatever room they were in. She was also agitated at the state of her 'kingdom" as we packed for the move. Upon arrival in her new home, she settled right in. Smokey got over his initial fear of an avenging mamacat and promptly made the kittens his new playmates. Nox appreciates having someone ELSE to play with Smokey so she can ignore him. Both adult cats groom the kittens. Our new vet says the duo is remarkably feline-socialized for human-raised kittens since they had adult cats to model their behaviour on. However...the kittens believe my partner is their biological mother. They sleep on him, follow him around, search for nipples in his hair. He is their MomDad. Obviously when you are someone's Mom and MomDad you do not give away your children...so...we now have four beautiful adult cats. The bitties did not knead until they were over a year old. They did not need that behaviour to nurse. They eventually learned it from Nocturne. We are not sure whether it was our destiny to find them, or whether the discovery was sheerly by chance. Therefore, their names are Kumani (Destiny in an African language) and Tyche (goddess of Chance). --Enfilade |
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"Enfilade" wrote in message
om... Bouncing bitties--raising feline "children" AAAWWWWW, what a great story - and what a great partner you have! Hugs, CatNipped |
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"Enfilade" wrote in message
om... Bouncing bitties--raising feline "children" AAAWWWWW, what a great story - and what a great partner you have! Hugs, CatNipped |
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"Enfilade" wrote in message
om... Bouncing bitties--raising feline "children" AAAWWWWW, what a great story - and what a great partner you have! Hugs, CatNipped |
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Congratulations on the additions to your family, and kudos to your
partner (and you) for being so caring. -- Joy "You can never do a kindness too soon because you never know how soon it will be too late." - Ralph Waldo Emerson "Enfilade" wrote in message om... Bouncing bitties--raising feline "children" Between Smokey and Nocturne, my partner and I thought we had sufficient cats for a two-bedroom apartment. In the summer of 2003, I was on military service, he was finishing his masters' degree, and we were three weeks away from moving halfway across the country...when he found a pair of three week old kittens sitting on a styrofoam slab next to the trash behind his school's loading dock. The bitties (itty bitty kitties) were just sitting there--no nest, no mother, no bed, no one around--as if the sky had opened and dropped them there. Obviously he couldn't leave them, and the local animal shelter was overflowing with up to 30 unwanted cats dropped off per DAY. That is not a good circumstance to hope you'll find someone with money, time, and ability to handraise kittens that young. So he put them in a syringe box and carried them home (a walk of over an hour since he got kicked off the bus for having animals.) Next he went on the internet and learned how to care for them--how to bottlefeed, how to keep them warm, how to use a cottonball to assist them in urinating and defacating, etc. After feeding, cottonballing, bathing, drying, preparing a box, and putting the bouncing bits in, he emailed me to inform me the cat population of the apartment had doubled. I drew a leave pass and came home to take the bits to the vet for a checkup, where they pronounced us caretakers of two healthy infants. They also said they were too young to adopt out for five more weeks...ie, after the move. So...my partner wrote his masters' thesis with a lapful of infant kittens, and then three weeks later he drove halfway across Canada with kittens in the shotgun seat of his car, feeding and cottoning them every three hours at rest stops and gas stations. (while I followed with Smokey and Nox in my car). Nocturne was /exceedingly/ unimpressed by the kittens, and avoided whatever room they were in. She was also agitated at the state of her 'kingdom" as we packed for the move. Upon arrival in her new home, she settled right in. Smokey got over his initial fear of an avenging mamacat and promptly made the kittens his new playmates. Nox appreciates having someone ELSE to play with Smokey so she can ignore him. Both adult cats groom the kittens. Our new vet says the duo is remarkably feline-socialized for human-raised kittens since they had adult cats to model their behaviour on. However...the kittens believe my partner is their biological mother. They sleep on him, follow him around, search for nipples in his hair. He is their MomDad. Obviously when you are someone's Mom and MomDad you do not give away your children...so...we now have four beautiful adult cats. The bitties did not knead until they were over a year old. They did not need that behaviour to nurse. They eventually learned it from Nocturne. We are not sure whether it was our destiny to find them, or whether the discovery was sheerly by chance. Therefore, their names are Kumani (Destiny in an African language) and Tyche (goddess of Chance). --Enfilade |
#9
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Congratulations on the additions to your family, and kudos to your
partner (and you) for being so caring. -- Joy "You can never do a kindness too soon because you never know how soon it will be too late." - Ralph Waldo Emerson "Enfilade" wrote in message om... Bouncing bitties--raising feline "children" Between Smokey and Nocturne, my partner and I thought we had sufficient cats for a two-bedroom apartment. In the summer of 2003, I was on military service, he was finishing his masters' degree, and we were three weeks away from moving halfway across the country...when he found a pair of three week old kittens sitting on a styrofoam slab next to the trash behind his school's loading dock. The bitties (itty bitty kitties) were just sitting there--no nest, no mother, no bed, no one around--as if the sky had opened and dropped them there. Obviously he couldn't leave them, and the local animal shelter was overflowing with up to 30 unwanted cats dropped off per DAY. That is not a good circumstance to hope you'll find someone with money, time, and ability to handraise kittens that young. So he put them in a syringe box and carried them home (a walk of over an hour since he got kicked off the bus for having animals.) Next he went on the internet and learned how to care for them--how to bottlefeed, how to keep them warm, how to use a cottonball to assist them in urinating and defacating, etc. After feeding, cottonballing, bathing, drying, preparing a box, and putting the bouncing bits in, he emailed me to inform me the cat population of the apartment had doubled. I drew a leave pass and came home to take the bits to the vet for a checkup, where they pronounced us caretakers of two healthy infants. They also said they were too young to adopt out for five more weeks...ie, after the move. So...my partner wrote his masters' thesis with a lapful of infant kittens, and then three weeks later he drove halfway across Canada with kittens in the shotgun seat of his car, feeding and cottoning them every three hours at rest stops and gas stations. (while I followed with Smokey and Nox in my car). Nocturne was /exceedingly/ unimpressed by the kittens, and avoided whatever room they were in. She was also agitated at the state of her 'kingdom" as we packed for the move. Upon arrival in her new home, she settled right in. Smokey got over his initial fear of an avenging mamacat and promptly made the kittens his new playmates. Nox appreciates having someone ELSE to play with Smokey so she can ignore him. Both adult cats groom the kittens. Our new vet says the duo is remarkably feline-socialized for human-raised kittens since they had adult cats to model their behaviour on. However...the kittens believe my partner is their biological mother. They sleep on him, follow him around, search for nipples in his hair. He is their MomDad. Obviously when you are someone's Mom and MomDad you do not give away your children...so...we now have four beautiful adult cats. The bitties did not knead until they were over a year old. They did not need that behaviour to nurse. They eventually learned it from Nocturne. We are not sure whether it was our destiny to find them, or whether the discovery was sheerly by chance. Therefore, their names are Kumani (Destiny in an African language) and Tyche (goddess of Chance). --Enfilade |
#10
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Congratulations on the additions to your family, and kudos to your
partner (and you) for being so caring. -- Joy "You can never do a kindness too soon because you never know how soon it will be too late." - Ralph Waldo Emerson "Enfilade" wrote in message om... Bouncing bitties--raising feline "children" Between Smokey and Nocturne, my partner and I thought we had sufficient cats for a two-bedroom apartment. In the summer of 2003, I was on military service, he was finishing his masters' degree, and we were three weeks away from moving halfway across the country...when he found a pair of three week old kittens sitting on a styrofoam slab next to the trash behind his school's loading dock. The bitties (itty bitty kitties) were just sitting there--no nest, no mother, no bed, no one around--as if the sky had opened and dropped them there. Obviously he couldn't leave them, and the local animal shelter was overflowing with up to 30 unwanted cats dropped off per DAY. That is not a good circumstance to hope you'll find someone with money, time, and ability to handraise kittens that young. So he put them in a syringe box and carried them home (a walk of over an hour since he got kicked off the bus for having animals.) Next he went on the internet and learned how to care for them--how to bottlefeed, how to keep them warm, how to use a cottonball to assist them in urinating and defacating, etc. After feeding, cottonballing, bathing, drying, preparing a box, and putting the bouncing bits in, he emailed me to inform me the cat population of the apartment had doubled. I drew a leave pass and came home to take the bits to the vet for a checkup, where they pronounced us caretakers of two healthy infants. They also said they were too young to adopt out for five more weeks...ie, after the move. So...my partner wrote his masters' thesis with a lapful of infant kittens, and then three weeks later he drove halfway across Canada with kittens in the shotgun seat of his car, feeding and cottoning them every three hours at rest stops and gas stations. (while I followed with Smokey and Nox in my car). Nocturne was /exceedingly/ unimpressed by the kittens, and avoided whatever room they were in. She was also agitated at the state of her 'kingdom" as we packed for the move. Upon arrival in her new home, she settled right in. Smokey got over his initial fear of an avenging mamacat and promptly made the kittens his new playmates. Nox appreciates having someone ELSE to play with Smokey so she can ignore him. Both adult cats groom the kittens. Our new vet says the duo is remarkably feline-socialized for human-raised kittens since they had adult cats to model their behaviour on. However...the kittens believe my partner is their biological mother. They sleep on him, follow him around, search for nipples in his hair. He is their MomDad. Obviously when you are someone's Mom and MomDad you do not give away your children...so...we now have four beautiful adult cats. The bitties did not knead until they were over a year old. They did not need that behaviour to nurse. They eventually learned it from Nocturne. We are not sure whether it was our destiny to find them, or whether the discovery was sheerly by chance. Therefore, their names are Kumani (Destiny in an African language) and Tyche (goddess of Chance). --Enfilade |
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