Tuesday, January 11, 2011

New Name Needed for Rainy, Who is A Boy

My excuse for wrongly sexing a kitten? Bad eyes, and negligance. Yes, negligance. I never really checked after initially checking when I grabbed them up there. Checking on the fly with my bad eyes.

I began to wonder, because Rainy had the wide nose of a boy a couple weeks ago, but once again, lazy ass negligance. I didn't bother to recheck. Besides "she" squiggles when I try to hold "her" with one hand and pull her tail out of the way with the other. I didn't want to get up close and personal with a ringworm "girl".

There, you have my excuses outlined.

But last night, "her" on the verge of being fixed, me having some unsettledness in my mind over the sex, an inkling of memory that I'd never really checked, I pulled the squiggly protesting Rainy onto my lap and peered under the tail. At first I thought "Yea, she's a girl," half-relieved, since I'd told everyone she is, without really ever checking. Then I thought "Wait a minute, that's a hole not a slit." I was squiting and peering and should have had my glasses on.

She's a he. But he has no descended testicles. He's a double crypt. He'll have to be fixed like a girl, probing inside, locating those "lost boys". He'll walk away with a bigger belly scar than any female kitten would get from a spay.

I looked at him and tousled his ears and said "I should rename you "WhiteTrash" or "Severely Inbred". WT. SIBB (Severely InBred Boy)." He darted off to rub cheeks with Zuli, his beloved bathroom mate and friend.

The double crypts don't grow as fast, I've discovered over the years, as boys with normal descended testicles. I wonder why that is.

I was contacted last summer by a woman feeding a colony at a nursing home in Corvallis. At that time, she had friends helping her trap them she said, telling me they all had to be rehomed. She just wanted some info about barn homes and relocating then.

It never happened however, the trapping of all the cats, and now she has been banned by management from feeding. When caught feeding again, the police were called. However, things have been smoothed over, at least so the cats can be fed, if immediately trapped and taken elsewhere. She called me, wanting me to trap them. I was going to, as soon as they lined up somewhere for them to go and the fixing.

They have now lined up fixing with help from Heartland and a shed where they can be temporarily housed. She thought there were seven, but an Animal Crackers employee wno went to feed the colony last night, and to trap the first one, said she saw at least a dozen, so there are probably more than a dozen.

The Animal Crackers employee trapped a beautiful chocolate point long hair last night. Looks male to me. Temporarily, until fixed, he is in my garage in a hutch. I offered to loan my cages. They have to set up the shed that will house them, until homes can be found. I refused to get involved in rehoming barn cats, because they all die, eaten by predators.

Guess the older woman has fed this colony for 8 years, would get some fixed, but not all, so it would continue.

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