- Oct 20
- 5 min read
Stray Momma and kittens continued! Not much of a cliffhanger - unless you are wondering how many kittens momma had in her litter. Read on to get the final count!
Just a brief catch-up on the first litter - Monkey, Buddy, Missy. Missy is still scheduled to be picked up by her new family. However, the family that wanted to adopt Buddy & Monkey has backed out - so they currently are looking for a new forever home. Truth be told - if we don't find one, they will just become part of the purrfectdozen crew. How shocking! Buddy is quite the cuddler - loves to be in your personal space and purrs so loud!
Buddy & Monkey are still learning the difference between bedtime and all other hours of the day! Bedtime—or rather, any time spent on the bed—is solely for napping or sleeping, calm pets, and that's it! Buddy thinks that it's playtime still—running, jumping, chasing, and anything but lying down for a snooze.
Meanwhile, Mama cat, who is now known as Opal, needed a new name because there's already a Mama Cat, who is more feral (that we fixed a few years ago), living outside. Opal is living her best life as an indoor cat, even though it took her a bit of time to realize it. She freaked out when we first brought her in and kept running into the sunporch windows trying to get outside. She calmed down, ate, realized she was with her first set of kittens, and immediately fell back into the routine of showing her dislike for her firstborns. She stayed on the porch with them for 24 hours. Missy, Buddy, Monkey, and Mr. Grey tried to stay out of her way.
We moved her upstairs to the main bathroom - Jasper's old room. We hadn't taken down the screen door yet, so it could still be used as a quarantine area. At this point, Opal is so pregnant she is waddling, lying down to eat, and just generally not moving much. Stepping
into the litter box with a higher side became an issue - so we swapped her to a low sided litter box. This just created more mess of litter everywhere for me to deal with, a small price to pay so she could use the litter box.
She went to the vet for a general check-up and to get her rabies shot. Dr. Alex said she would guess she'd deliver any day because her belly was so full there wasn't much room left! We could have gotten an X-ray to see how many babies to expect, but figured that she was so big that we wouldn't be able to tell for sure. Skip the X-ray - let's go for a surprise! We were warned that the stress of going to the vet and getting the rabies shot could push her to have the babies sooner rather than later. Which was perfectly fine by me - we are a week out from leaving for vacation. I would rather be home if there are any complications!
About 24 hours later, we have babies! I came home from work to find she had 4 babies, and she was still cleaning them. I left to avoid disturbing her, planning to return later. A few hours later, she had finished cleaning, and there were 8 tiny babies! We were shocked, expecting only 4 to 6. In the first week, they don't move much. She ensures they eat, cleans them, and keeps them warm. I check on them regularly to ensure they are breathing and eating.
She only has 6 nipples, so she is constantly feeding, and all the kittens are on rotation. This has me stressed—how will I truly know if one of them isn't eating or isn't getting enough food? The vet's office said I could weigh them each day to make sure, but I was hesitant to touch them that much, and they all looked the same that first week. I figured as long as they all had healthy breathing, we were in the clear! Feeding such a big litter means Opal herself needs to eat a decent amount as well, and not just regular adult cat food. She needs high protein, high calorie. So she's on the kitten dry food and kitten wet food. She gets about 10-12 cans of kitten wet food each day. That sounds like a lot, but sometimes I think it's not enough. The kitten wet food cans are pretty small, and she's got to eat enough for her plus the babies now. She's literally eating my entire paycheck each week in food.
The first week flies by as I watch over her, admire the babies, and see how well she's taking care of them. She is overly friendly with all of us when we go into the bathroom, which is great. She trusts us to be around her babies, holding and touching them, and allowing them to be overly friendly with humans. As the week winds down, we have managed to keep all of them fed and alive! Success! Now we start to pack for vacation and hope that all continues to go well. We hired a pet sitter to come by once a day to feed, scoop litter, and make sure all is well. Our housemates will fill in the rest of the feeding times.
Vacation week - it's hard not to be home with the babies as they are growing and hitting milestones - opening their eyes, moving more with a crawl on their own, and colors coming in on their coats. Pictures don't do justice to what we are missing, but they keep us up to date! We get home just in time for them all to have their eyes fully open (although eye colors are still changing). They are getting more steady with walking and exploring their entire room now, following mom for food instead of waiting for her to go to them.
Now at 4 weeks old, they are running, climbing our legs, climbing on the low scratching pads, and walking in mom's food and water bowls. They have started to pee on the floor—not ideal, but they haven't figured out the litter box yet. That's going to happen soon enough. Whenever I go in, I put them in the litter box. The instinct to cover will push them to the "sand"-filled box soon enough. In the meantime, mom still licks their butts, and I'm cleaning up little pee puddles. My legs are covered in scratches from their razor-sharp nails.
The rest of the cats have yet to fully realize there are 8 little babies behind the curtain in the bathroom; soon enough, that time will come. They may have a scenery change from the bathroom to the sunporch—as they get faster and bigger, the bathroom will be too small for 9 of them!
With an entire litter, we are facing the naming process, so toss out your name ideas! Sometimes I want to stick with a theme related to mom's name, Opal, but we always like to have the name relate to their personality. The personalities are still developing in these little babies.
Till our tails cross again,
Melanie
