You have heard the sayings about best laid plans? And how they often go awry?
That has especially been true this last week here at Fabled Coons Cattery, where despite our expectations, plans went awry.
Extra, and healthy, kittens is a rather positive example of plans going awry, but it certainly wasn’t on our agenda!
How does one end up with extra kittens: Particularly when you have a breeding schedule?
I’m glad you asked: it all starts with the fact that our dear Themis, who NEVER goes into heat but once a year, who never gave us a single inkling that she was in heat, decided several months ago that she really just wanted to hang out with Zeus (males are kept separate so accidental litters don’t happen), and nothing else made her happy. That, and the reality of how nature likes to take it’s course, means kittens.
The good news is that she and the kittens are super healthy. I would like to think that this is due, in part, to the fact that our cats are fed super duper high protien, quality cat food even when not pregnant. And yes, extra healthy cat food is a thing, a pricey thing, but the case for using such a high quality product was reinforced by this surprise litter!
Let me reverse a little bit, the kittens weren’t 100% a surprise. Only a 98% surprise. I make sure my big love-fluffs are in good shape by intentionally running my hands over them (not just petting) once a day. On wednesday, when doing this, I felt some hard knobby lumps on our dear Themis’s abdomen. Experience told me that unless she had some serious digestive issues going on, it could only be kittens; intestines don’t usually feel boney! I was convinced enough that I spent the majority of the day getting another room ready to be a back-up birthing room/nursery. So, despite being 98% surprised, we were actually semi prepared!
All of this to say, we have babies, lots and lots of adorable babies.
Precious tiny faces
We are supplementing a few of them, particularly for dear Selene who has six little ones. Even a super-mom like her can do with a little assistance when caring for six babies!
So our long weekend consisted of many loads of towels, weighing babies, mixing kitten formula, and some caramel apple making in the middle of all that.
No, the caramel apples were NOT for the cats. We made caramel apples with the kids and watched Dr Who on a rainy afternoon because why wouldn’t you do that between cat chores and feeding tiny baby kittens? It only seemed logical to us.
I have to take a moment and brag about these amazing kids we have. They were such troopers on Sunday morning. As usual they got up, got ready for church, did their chores, and then they did my chores as well when I needed backup. One of Selene’s kittens was in distress. She was being jumpy and kept trying to stash them in odd corners of the birthing room, which means this one got cold, it’s blood sugar dropped, and then it tried to die!
So instead of taking my dear family to church, as planned, I sat with a lap full of towels and heated up rice-filled socks, with a limp kitten and a cup of sugar syrup next to me administering it every 2 minutes. And while I did that, my dear kids took charge, worked together, and pulled their weight when it was needed. Staying home may not have been my plan, but watching the kids be excellent humans certainly did my heart a lot of good.
In case you were wondering, Selene is not in the birthing room any longer, and is much more relaxed in the nursery. Thankfully she has stopped trying to stash her kittens in odd corners!
Oh, and I had to play plumber in the middle of all of this as well. A critical leaking faucet turned into a necessary replacement of multiple old, sketchy, connections under the sink. We conquered it.
What is next here at Fabled Coons? Well, we keep an eye on the babies, supplement any who seem to be slower growing, pamper the moms, and gear up for a fancy photo shoot by the end of this week. And in the meantime, I’ll continue to be grateful that I can say home, play with cats and kittens and be with my family all at the same time.
And finally, we get to start picking cattery-nursery names!!
This is one of my favorite new-kitten activities. And since we have quite a few kittens, we need a theme that will give us 10 names. We have some good ideas, and are working on picking which ones we love the best.
Stay tuned to see what fun (or funny?) names we end up picking, and to catch a glimpse the official baby photos.