They Are Gone.

Our babies; our four little gingers; our Weasleys; Freddy, Georgy, Ronnie and Ginnie are gone.

We knew from the beginning that we couldn't keep them, we had too many cats already. All because people treat cats like throw away, disposable animals, we end up with so many wandering around the village. A lot of them making their way to our back yard. We do our best but we can't take everyone in. And these four, being kittens have a chance at getting adopted.

Still it's painful. I love them so much.

It's been just over a week, but I still find myself tearing up when I think of them. Our Thunder. That's what we started calling them because of the sounds the made running from one end of the bathroom to the other.

We helped raise them for almost eleven weeks. We watched them learn to walk and climb, to use the litter pot and eat solid food. We were the ones who took them to the vet to get fixed and were the ones who worried about them while they healed from their surgeries.

For the last week they've been in the care of a Hants County NSSPCA foster home. This is where they will be while they wait to find their "furever" homes.

I can't stop worrying about how they are doing, or the kind of home they will get. They will always be a part of me. I know I will always think of them.

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I'm still very behind on the videos I'm making about them. I find it quite hard right now to watch all the video clips of taken of them over the weeks.

The latest, Twenty-eight Days Old is up:



I've been finding it hard for a while now to edit these videos down to just a couple of minutes. I'm sure now that the kitties are gone I'm going to find it even more difficult to edit down the video. So, as each one is edited, they will probably get progressively longer. Beside, they are more meant for us as memories of the babies than they are for others.

Feeding Time – Daily iPhone Photograph #146

They love it when it's feeding time.

...and growing

Twenty Days Old



Twenty-four Days Old

The Kittens Keep Growing

Fifteen Days Old



Seventeen Days Old



Nineteen Days Old

Fourteen Days Old

Fourteen days old on June 11, 2011.

Thirteen Days Old

Video shot June 10, 2011.

Georgy – Daily iPhone Photograph #111

I'm a bit behind on the videos of Patch's little kitties. I'm making "Thirteen Days Old" now, and well they are actually four and a half weeks along already.

But these... they were taken tonight. I made Georgy the model tonight and spent time trying to get a good pic of him, while the others were just quick shots. The others will be models on other nights.

Georgy

Ginnie

Freddy

Ronnie

Eleven Days Old

Video shot on June 8th, when the kittens where eleven days old.

Ten Days Old

Video from June 7th, when the kittens where 10 days old.

Mommy and her Nine Day Old Kittens

Mommy (Patch) taking care of her kittens.

Nine Days Old

Nine days old and growing fast.

Eight Days Old

Here the kittens are eight days old:

One Day Old and Three Days Old

Tiny has healed and is happy to be free. The kittens are growing and doing well.

I should have reread and edited the text in the videos but... oh well.

One Day Old:



Three Days Old:

The Arrival of the Newborn Kittens

After Tiny went into labour and allowed us to get close enough to capture her, we were able to
get her spayed through the catch/spay/release program (it's not free, but is a reduced price).

We kept Patch with her for company, as the two sisters are quite close. Also, with Patch being pregnant, we wanted to keep her confined until she had her kittens as we didn't want to chance her having them outside and them becoming feral as well. Patch had her kittens the day after we moved them from out bathroom (we do need to shower every now and again) and put them in a very large dog kennel.

Despite how scared the sisters were, and the stress of everything going on around them/to them over those couple of days, they dealt with it all very well and stayed calm.

Abandoned Kitty

Video of an abandoned kitten I found in our currant bushes on May 23, 2010. If it hadn't been for how loud the tiny thing was crying, I would never have known it was there. 

We have quite a few stray and feral cats in our area. We do what we can for them, including trying to catch the feral ones to have them fixed in the local catch/spay/release program. We have three 8 month old feral girls we've been trying to get close to since their Mommy brought them around. (We were able to catch mommy when she left them on their own. She was once again very pregnant. We were luck that the local SPCA took her. She had 5 more kittens who the SPCA are trying to find homes for. They have fixed Mommy and she has been adopted.)

Video of Mommy and the three feral girls the first day Mommy brought the to the "food house".

I am certain that this little kitten was the first born of the litter of the smallest of the three feral girls. As we name every cat who turns up, whether they are in the yard for a day or decide this is their home, we call her Tiny.

Tiny curious about the phone, but wary of me

 She was extremely friendly that day and for the first time didn't run when I got within a few feet of her, and she actually let me touch her. When I petted her, I ran my hand along her tail and my hand came back with blood on it. I new she was in labour and was able to get her into a cat carrier. One of her sisters, whom we call Patch (for the patch of orange on her head), was also pregnant and would not leave her sister's side. We were able to get both cats into our washroom. It was about four hours after this that I found the kitten in the currant bushes.

Video of Tiny and Patch together. Tiny is the active one in the front and Patch is sitting under the tree.

We hand fed this little one every two hours overnight. The next morning we found that Tiny had given birth to a little black and white kitten, whom she was not taking care of. She had left it in a corner while she was cuddling with her sister in another area.

Luckly our vet was able to take the abandoned kittens and put them in the hands of people who knew what they were doing when it comes to hand feeding them.


There was a third kitten, however it didn't survive. It got stuck and suffocated before anything could be done.
Their mommy (Tiny) was then fixed as part of the catch/spay/release program and returned to us to release back into the feral cat colony she came from. We kept her with her pregnant sister (who has since given birth and is a good mommy) for a few days to allow her heal.

Tiny is now out and about and back with her other sister (Whom we call Little Cee - she looks a lot like her mommy whom we call CeeCee). Still as timid with us as she was before she went in labour, but she's far more playful.

Video of the three sisters together. Tiny is the one in the tree, and is the smallest when you see all three together. Little Cee is the mostly white one, and Patch is the one, well with the little patch of orange on her head.


We still have to catch Little Cee and get her spayed. She is the most cautious of us and has avoided all our efforts thus far. Patch will get spayed after her kittens a weaned.