Sunday, May 30, 2010

Ten Cute Kittens Now in Portland. Moms Go Home Tomorrow. 33 Cats and Kittens in One Week.

In one week's time, I trapped and transported to be fixed 16 adult cats from this one colony and dug 18 kittens out of all sorts of god awful places, from moldy wet pallets to boxes to tight spots in bare metal old cars. I got a long lasting antibiotic shot for one sick adult male and had another male's foot abscess, from fighting because he wasn't fixed, cleaned and drained, along with his earmites cleaned and treated. All the cats were flea treated and wormed. I've dealt with a dying kitten, buried him, and I've dealt with having 17 kittens in my one bathroom, too and that isn't easy, let me tell you.

If anybody out there is reading this, and thinks they can still just let their cat breed, boy, you would be a heartless stupid soul who lacks any empathy for those busting their butts trying to solve this horrible overpopulation problem. Or, you'd just be one selfish person. That's about all I have to say to people who do not fix their cats or strays they feed.

The overpopulation problem is like a big huge bull elephant standing in the living room that everybody is pretending isn't there, except a couple people out of a million. That's a good take on it.

Shelters long have pulled in the donations while doing absolutely nothing to solve the problem except sucking funds from the few groups worldwide who understand you can't shelter out of this problem and that instead, you focus only on spay neuter. The money needs to go directly to fixing the source.

Don't be stupid with your charitable money. Donate to spay neuter groups or go find unfixed cats and get them fixed. If everybody would do that, pretty soon, the only animals in shelters would be those waiting for homes if their owners had to move or died. And that, shelters could handle just fine, with very little space and money.


I finally got going, despite exhaustion clouding my brain and making me move real slow, and got up to Portland to the fosterers with the ten kittens. I had not had time to clean out their ears and treat them for mites and I felt bad I hadn't done that. Nor had I clipped their nails. I've been a little busy!

I did not have time to return the two females in my bathroom, nor the female fixed yesterday. I changed the female fixed yesterday to a clean trap before leaving and did the same upon return. The calico doesn't mind my bathroom, but the black and white female does mind and is very feral. I wanted so much to take all three back this morning, but I just could not get myself going and had to make decisions. Which was more important? Getting ten kittens to Portland and foster homes and out of my bathroom? Or getting two adult feral females out of my bathroom and home, along with one in my garage? Well, both were important! But, it was all arranged for the fosterers to pick up kittens and I couldn't let them down or be late, so that was more important.

The bathroom females are well kept, eating, bedded and drinking in style. The garage female, fixed yesterday, is also being well kept and extremely well fed, which she likes. So it's no big deal for them, I'm sure, to be well fed and out of the weather for another night. It's my issue, wanting a bathroom free of feral cats and several days to sleep straight through.

Of the original 8 kittens, five were orange tabby boys. Three of those went to Heartland. Two remained here, as they had broken out in colds. This is Rum.
And this is Hisser Spitter and very sweet.
The torbi kitten shows bottle boy the ins and outs of Q-tip theft and play.
This calico is Neat Freak's sister!
This long hair torbi kitten was one of four I dug out of soggy grass beneath a rotting pallet in a field. The young Lynx Pt. Siamese medium hair was probably their mother. Two of the kittens were to Heartland and two remained here. I didn't want to overload Heartland. This kitten is so funny. She prances around showing off her hair and beautiful gorgeous tail, strutting and preening.
This, the second Woods Box torti, is terribly bonded to humans. She wants held and carried around and forget my mom, she says, because she never fed us enough.
One of the two Icicle box boy survivor bottle babes, as I've dubbed them.
One of the two Icicle box bottle babe boys, whose black and white young mom, once in the bathroom with them, completely rejected motherhood.

This white muted calico kitten was the sole survivor of one of the torti mother's litters. But which torti? Not the one I've had in my bathroom.
Woods box torti kitten, one of two very thin kittens I found in a bed box at the edge of the woods.
Long hair torti, one of the original 8 kittens, who is now at Heartland.

Saturday, May 29, 2010

BP Temp Fix Idea---Mine. Capture Escaping oil with Balloon.

I have an idea to temp fix the BP oil leak, flooding the gulf with sticky brown goo.

It involves huge huge balloons. That's right. Balloons. Made of really tough stuff. At the bottom the balloon would be attached to a heavy steel loop with heavy duty hooks and that steel hoop would be anchored over the leak. Gauges would release all hooks simulataneously when a certain pressure inside the balloon triggered the sensor. At the same time, the bottom of the balloon would be cynched shut. The balloon would rise. Why? Because, I hear, there's a lot of gas mixed into the oil. Otherwise, ballast would raise it slowly. Expansion, from decreased pressure upon rising from the depths, would be accounted for. Once up top, the oil/water mix would be pumped out through a filter that would seperate the oil and water.

I think I've done my share. That's the big idea.

Many such balloons could lay in wait, while one fills, to be immediately hooked into place.

This is a temp thing, to capture some or most of the oil escaping.

I think it's a great idea. Remember, you heard it here first!

Three More Cats Fixed Today

Black tux female, from Lebanon colony, spayed today.
A big unfixed Lynx Point male, defers, when confronted by the big black male, and heads on up the driveway. I ran into the two males facing off when returning four of the six cats fixed yesterday.
The two big unfixed boys square off.
Black male, gearing for a fight.
These are the two girls trapped by a different woman, outside Lebanon, when trapping for a raccoon killing their chickens. Both were lactating. The woman was horrified, because they lit their burnpile today. She wonders if the kittens were deep inside it. I hope not.


I took up three more cats to be fixed today. The black tux short hair, from the Lebanon colony, was not a male at all. It was yet another female, but, happily, pregnant, not lactating.

I was moments from leaving for the clinic, when I checked my e-mail. A Lebanon woman had trapped two cats when after a raccoon and did not want to release them unfixed. I guess she had posted on craigslist for help and someone sent her my e-mail. Guess it was lucky I took time to check my mail early this morning.

I asked if she could meet me at Home Depot within 20 minutes and she was there and grateful. Both were girls. And both were, sadly, lactating. She will hunt for the kittens. The girls are already home and ready to be released, since the clinic uses gas anesthesia and they are under barely ten minutes. Also, they have a laser they use on the wound after surgery, not only for pain relief, but, it has been found, it quickens the healing process by leaps and bounds.

All ten kittens in my bathroom are leaving tomorrow. I am happy, and yet I will miss their antics, sheer innocence in the face of all the tragedies of life, and the fact they recover from their hardships simply if a toy is placed in front of their face! Course a bowl of food is nice too, and even a syringe full of warm KMR, even if they can eat on their own.

I have two moms in with them, the contented torti, as I call her, who was really very happy to return to my bathroom after her spay, eager even. The black and white female, fixed yesterday, mom of the three bottle babes, one now deceased, is also in the bathroom, but not so eager to be there and not so eager to mom anybody, even her own kittens. The torti on the other hand, would accept any and all kittens, I think, and be good with it.

I am returning four of the six fixed yesterday (minus the two moms), settling the female fixed today in for the night then settling in for a very very early night off myself, phone off the hook. It's pampering take it easy time!

Friday, May 28, 2010

Cold, Cold World

Hypothermic little kitten.
Black and white mom, fixed today, with two of her three kittens.
The two latest kittens from the Lebanon colony.

I am exhausted. I am frustrated and sad, too. And horrified.

I get back from taking six more cats from the Lebanon colony, off a rural road east of town, to be fixed, the torti from my bathroom, a black and white young female cat, two more flame points, one a female, one a male, and the big long hair orange and white, who had a severe URI.

The orange and white male's URI was severe enough the vet really really wanted to inject him with the two week antibiotic. Despite the expense, I finally agreed. Then the big Flame point male had a bad abscess, from fighting, on a front paw and bad ear mites. I agreed to the ear mite treatment and the vet cleaned and drained the abscess at no charge, thank god.

I went to the rest area and tried to sleep some.

I got back fairly late, and was planning on taking the weekend off after the sheer joy AND misery of caring for so many kittens and doing all that work on that Lebanon colony. Then I get a call from the daughter of the Lebanon man with the cats. They found the black and white females' kittens. I had told them yesterday I thought she had kittens in their shop barn because she hung out around it. We'd gone looking, and I ended tripping over a trailer hitch hidden in very tall thick grass. But they wouldn't open the shop itself, which was locked, to look, claiming they couldn't be in there because they would know it, since they are in there a lot.

But they were in there. She said they were young but old enough she thought to eat wet food, so, when they found them mid day today they put them in a cardboard box, she said, with wet food and a water dish. I went up immediately tonight.

I knew they were going to be freezing and hypothermic. She had said one just would lay on its side and not move but cry. She thought it must be injured. She said she had a home for one of them.

I knew this was not going to be a good scene with babies that young overnight in freezing weather. They can't generate their own body heat well until they're older.

I went out, and the man pulled out the box. The bottom was wet. There was not so much as a towel for them to lay on. Two were screaming but active and the other was screaming and laying flat out. I picked that one up and it was ice cold. I thought, "How did this kitten survive, laying in water, from the water dish, for that long?" The outlook was not good I know. His tongue was blue and his body stiff. I tucked him immediately into my bra against my skin. The man was saying "Well he must be injured." I said, "No, he's freezing to death." I took his hand and put it on the little body so he could feel the ice cold himself.

I sat in my car with the motor running and the heater vent blowing on him for probably 15 minutes, trying to get his body back to life. He revived somewhat, enough for me to head home. I tucked him back into my bra for the drive home.

I can't get him to warm up though. His heart is failing. This was all so unnecessary.

Pisses me off, too. And they had trapped another black and white male. Now I have him to deal with. I should have turned him loose I think. Monday is a holiday. If I don't find somewhere to get him fixed tomorrow, well I have to, I can't hold an unneutered adult male here until next week. Pisses me off because I'm worn out.

The two kittens will live and the third, who laid in water for half a day, will die. He can't survive that. He's only two weeks old.

All my difficulties are compounded by Jack, the Heartland cat, who, after seeming to get over his slurpy cold, broke out in sudden extreme bilateral conjunctivitis. It is so extreme his eyelids are bleeding and half over his eyes, bright bloody red. The only other cat I took care of, who got bilateral conjunctivitis this bad was Little Miss Sunshine, now known as Tsarina and who lives in Ridgefield now.

It was the Neuterscooter vet who said, "For gosh sakes, use a corticosteroid," and proceeded to prescribe eye ointment containing it. As long as there is no tear or ulcer on the cornea, she said, she'll be fine. It worked almost instantly, comparitively speaking, and within four days, she was much improved. I'd already taken her to a vet twice.

So far, Jack has no tear or ulcer. He is unbelievably impossible to medicate due to his extreme aggression, which has come out again with the stress he is under with the pain of such severe conjunctivitis.

He went after me tonight when I tried to treat his eyes, not just biting when I tried to medicate him, but literally charging at me swinging at me and trying to bite me. This is probably one of those cats who is too damaged and maybe should have been euthanized as he cannot even be a barn cat if there are children who live near because he's tame and wants petted, but he can suddenly decide to turn and come after you and bite.

I wish he'd had a rabies vaccine before he came here from Heartland, being the biter he is. He gets along with other cats, and as long as he lives on his terms, he does not go after me. But, medicating his eyes is a different story and is dangerous for me to even try. If I don't, he'll lose both eyes. I guess what he came down with is something that has gone around Heartland, the cold that seems to end, then the sudden outbreak of bilateral conjunctivitis. In most cats, medicating with antibiotic eye ointment does the trick, but not with a cat like Jack, who cannot be medicated without entering the danger zone. True ferals are far easier to medicate, because they are just scared. This cat comes at me with a vengence. He has been abused by someone.

Update: the frozen kitten has died.

I suppose losing only one of the 18 from this terrible situation should not feel bad. But tonight it does feel bad. I'm worn out.

I feel a pride, that in one short week, 16 adults have been fixed, all but four and maybe only three, because the big Flame Point might be the one they call the white male, and 17 kittens are going to have live as a result.

This has been one very difficult week. It's almost over though. Seven of the kittens went to Heartland and they vowed they would not be euthanized, that they are a different shelter now from the one I once knew. The two fluffy boys went there as did Dandelion, the buff boy, and Vixen the long hair torti. Two short hair torti's went and so did Prancer, the long hair Lynx Points' little funny brown tabby tux girl.

I have ten more as a result of the two living kittens from tonight, in my bathroom, but they are all leaving on Sunday for various foster homes. I won't see them again.

All the adults will be back home by Sunday too and I won't trap for the last three until later next week. There are two all blacks left to catch. One for sure is a male and the littler one I'm betting is also a female. And if so, she'll have kittens somewhere. Then there is the second torti. The only hope I have for any kittens out there we haven't found is there are a lot of mothers there, who will take on any kitten, whose own kittens I stole away, so the raccoons and hawks and the cold, cold world won't take them.

I took kittens from the cold, cold world into one of love and warmth. I stole a lot of kittens from the cold dark vicious jungle this week.

Thursday, May 27, 2010

The Q-Tip Boys


Both these kittens went to Heartland this afternoon.

Wrong Torti!

Tabby male, showing off his eartip, after his release this morning.
The Lynx Point fixed last Monday, out in the grass.
The wrong torti, with too many kittens. The orange tux little boy is the one who is very ill and almost died last night, but I think he'll be fine.
Two of the older kittens.
Dandelion, the buff short hair male kitten.

This morning, when I returned the seven adults from the colony fixed yesterday, the caretaker daughter had trapped three more. All three are flame points. This will be five flamepoints so far fixed from there.

She also showed me a photo she took last night, of another torti adult. I looked at the photo and exclaimed, "Oh my gosh, that is the mom of the white calico kitten. Who is the torti in my bathroom?" The torti in my bathroom looked like a male to me originally, big looking jowels. In any event, she's not the mom I thought she was, but nonetheless, the kittens love her.

I brought back the three Flamepoints, after releasing the other seven. Nine adults have now been fixed from the colony. I have four more in hand, counting the bathroom torti.

There are at least seven more I know of needing caught and fixed: two more all blacks, one a huge male.

There are two more black and whites, one of whom is more white than black, young and likely female while the other is huge and fluffy with just a big fluffy white chest spot. That one is a male.

There is a huge white male, with some gray on its face. This one I haven't seen, but the daughter took a photo of him. He's a Lynx Point looker and massive.

There is a big fluffy orange tux male too.

And there is another torti.

With the four to be fixed tomorrow, 13 adults will have been fixed from there and 15 kittens removed, 28 cats so far.

Heartland has agreed to take some of the kittens and this is wonderful. I'm taking some over now. They are breaking out in conjunctivitis and colds one by one. The little hisser boy orange tux male I thought was going to die last night, he got a sudden onset cold so bad with bilateral conjunctivitis. However, steaming, clindamycin, fluids, some coritisone ointment rubbed on his sore red nose and idoxuridin antiviral eyedrops, the very last I had, pulled him back from the edge of oblivion. He still looks bad but he's eating. I must get more of those drops. They are magic.

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Photos of Seven Cats Fixed Today

I took up only seven of the 8 cats I trapped yesterday at the colony. The torti, who is in the bathroom with the kittens, will be fixed later. Todays fixes were five boys and two girls. After delivering them to the clinic, I drove to the rest area and slept until 1:00 p.m. when the clinic called to say they were done. I was exhasuted, you see. I could not sleep last night due to knee pain. I'm very tired right now and I"m going to bed.

Brown tabby male, fixed today.
Big Buff tabby male, fixed today.
Young vocal Flame Pt. male, fixed today.
Black male, fixed today.
Orange and white male, short hair, with URI and conjunctivitis, fixed today.DSH Black tux female, spayed today.
Short hair young Lynx Pt. Siamese female, spayed today.

The New Colony Video

Name the Kittens

I can't keep the kittens straight. I need to name them. I hope most of them are quickly going elsewhere. Nonetheless, since I drank coffee very late, and my knee is killing me, I can't sleep Time to name the kittens.

Unfortunately, I volunteered the only mother interested even slightly in her own kittens to mom all 15. It's not like she has a choice. She was in my trap, after all! I wield my power so ruthlessly.

They all wanted part of that poor calico, once I brought her into my bathroom. 15 little kittens crying in chorus for her, climbing onto her, all trying to crowd inside the big carrier she immediately dodged into.

Which kittens were actually hers? The only one I know for sure is hers is the white calico. I trapped that little thing and she is bitty. That kitten and her I startled out of one of the housing units the man had made for the cats, up in the woods. In the other one, were two more fat little tortis. A young black tux adult came shooting out of there. But she was rarely seen inside with them.

Who was mom of the two tortis? I have no clue. I had to get down on my hands and knees in the mud to reach way back into that housing unit and feel for those kittens. I hoped they wouldn't bite me. The knees of my jeans were caked in mud afterwards. The housing units are nice. The colony caretaker even keeps the bedding clean.

Down in the field, where the young starving Lynx Point was hanging out, the woman had found her kittens last night. Four of them living beneath a rotting pallet in the tall grass that provided very little cover from the harsh weather we've had lately and nowhere for a mother to nurse kittens out of the rain.

Today, I went and pulled apart the rotted boards of that pallet and picked four kittens out of the soggy dark crumbling wood. That was right after I heard a raccoon kill a kitten. It was something I never want to hear again. The raccoon was growling like a demon. The kitten was shrieking and then the shrieks turned into something even worse. This was up in the woods above the fence with barbed wire on top. I couldn't get up and over it in time. At that point, I made the decision to take the rest of the kittens out of there.

I think the Lynx Point had stolen kittens from other mothers. Cat colonies are soap operic worlds. Mothers who feel inferior or whose kittens have died or if they misplace one, when moving them, often steal a kitten or two from other mothers. The fact she had them way down in the field when all the other kittens were up nearer the house makes me even more suspicious she had stolen the kittens from whatever mother had the two up in one housing unit. Or, she saw they were not being well cared for and stepped in. This happens in colonies also.

The Lynx Point was in heat again, even while lactating, and being followed by a huge rough looking black tom. She didn't seem to mind the attention either.

I left her a bowl of wet food by the pallet so she'd know it was me who took her kittens. She likes me because I fed her so much last night, after her surgery and she was soo hungry. She never went looking for them.

She's gaining street creds hanging with the biggest baddest male, too. Won't matter to her once he's fixed and now that she is. A lot of the postering for position, among females too, ends when they're fixed. Finally, they're equals and there is no more point to postering. Violence and discrimination in cat colonies are purely hormonal driven. Probably it's the same with humans.

Back to naming the little ones. I have in my possession in the bathroom 15 cute little kittens. I have 5 boys!!!! And, TEN girls. Yes, ten girls.

The boys: orange and white long hair, sweet natured, playful, and a clown. He knows how to relax too and is loving his new life here. He's pretty and blue eyed to boot. There is a short hair pale buff blue eyed boy, too. I call him Dandelion. There are two medium hair orange tabbies, one with a little bit of white around his mouth, and last but not least, a very dark orange tux boy, the wild one.

The girls: In the first 8 kittens I took out day before yesterday, there were three girls. They are all tortis. There is one long hair. I've named her Vixen. There is The Mountaineer, a classic torti who likes to climb. She is bright eyed and precocious. Then there is the littlest torti, with one bad eye, inflamed in conjunctivitis. I haven't named her yet.

Today's seven kittens are ALL girls. The pallet kittens are: a brown tabby tux tiny girl, who literally prances about the bathroom already. So she is Prancer. She has a long hair torbi sister, who is the Neat Freak, and cannot stand anything dirty to touch her or get on her paw. There is another torti, with a V of orange on her face, so she is "V". And last but not least there is an almost black torti and she isn't friendly yet. I call her Miss Hiss.

Then there are the passed around pair of tortis whose mom is who knows who. One of them looks suspiciously like V, except the black half mustache is on the opposite side of her face as V's is. The other is another classic torti--Marble. Then, the outsider, the white calico. I call her Puff.

So, I've got some of them named now. That should help. I might change their names, too, if I think of names that fit them better.

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Photos from the Colony

I have 8 more adults from the colony caught. That makes ten adults and 15 kittens so far. Still to catch: a white and black, a huge black tux, (shaggy), two all blacks, a long hair orange tux, several more flamepoints. I believe I've snagged all the kittens.


Two raccoons come out of the woods. The one in front I have nicknamed Earbite. Although, after closer examination of the photos, I see that there are two different raccoons with bites out of their right ear. One raccoon is larger than the other and the larger raccoon is the REAL earbite, with much more of his ear missing, in fact.


Big tough black cat saunters with attitude up the driveway.
Tabby comes for food. This cat is now in a trap and will be neutered tomorrow.
No Earbite, the raccoon.



The female Flamepoint, fixed yesterday, showing off her eartip.
Little Earbite, the raccoon.
The Real Earbite!

Cats in the grass.

Seven more kittens. Six More Adults.

I spent all day out at the colony and dug up seven more kittens and caught six more adults. I am desperately searching for rescues or shelters who can take some of the kittens off my hands.

In the meantime, at least 8 of the many adults will now be fixed.

Monday, May 24, 2010

More Kitten Photos

Who can resist cute kittens?

Of the 8 in my bathroom from the Lebanon colony, five are orange boys. There is the pretty boy, outgoing and outrageous, playful and funny, who is long hair orange and white. There is a long hair straight orange tabby and a long hair buffer in color tabby. There is a short hair buff boy and a dark orange and white short hair boy. There are three torti girls, one long hair, two short hair. The two short hairs have quickly come to realize bathroom life here with lots of food beats out life lived huddled inside the metal shell formerly occupied by a car headlite!

All are quickly getting over their eye gunk troubles. Four of them came with no eye problems. The ones who did are quickly overcoming! Two may be spoken for already. The little boy and his mom did find the Lynx Point Siamese's kittens, took them a bed, food and water. They are about the same size as those in the photos below, they said.

This is so far the most outgoing of the kittens. He is a clown!
This tiny torti LOVES her comfort time.
This is the long hair kitten who had gunked eyes. In this photo, I had just washed them.
Buff boy has a slight earmite issue. He's already had one ear clean.

In other news, another house is up for sale on this short block. That makes two houses for sale on the block, and another empty. I think it is going to get rented out. A neighbor told me that. I think there are only 13 houses on this block, if I counted right and I probably didn't. With three empty or for sale, that's kind of a high percentage seems like. Maybe it isn't. What do I know.

I bet it's my cats driving them out. Sure, they're indoor but that doesn't mean they haven't dug a tunnel. I bet they're out at night creating chaos and havoc while I sleep. Then they probably sneak back real quiet like, covering their little tunnel hole opening and pretending they've been sleeping peacefully all night. They're such pretenders, these cats. I always knew there was more to their lives than this innocent purring, lap sitting, playing, eating, sleeping thing.

The poor Siamese Lynx Pt, spayed today, in photos in post before, is just starved. She has so far eaten THREE cans of wet food. Poor girl, raising kittens out in the grass and trying to rush up the driveway to get a few bites of food before its all gone. She's just starved to death. She has been sitting now, in the trap, in my car, purring her head off. She's so happy to have a full stomach! It kills me to take cats like her back. Triggers something in me with her, she's so desperate. I want to bring her kittens here and house them all until they can be adopted out and then find her a home too. But, I can't take them all in.

If I take her kittens, tomorrow, when I'm up there, she'll be free, and can eat more. They all can. I can do that for her. I can steal her kittens away. That at least will help her.

Dog in the Road

 I went to get groceries yesterday morning fairly early. I was expecting visitors, brief ones, pop in and out, so I wanted to get done with ...