Church Ditch Kittens

All three are still alive, although its been quite the fight to keep the little orange guy going. I still give him fluids once per day, to make sure. The Siamese kitten was returned to me a few days after the woman, whose cats I'd taken to be fixed the same day I caught him, had offered to take him. She wanted me to take care of him a few days while she took a trip to eastern Oregon. However, she was back on Monday and has not called me, to arrange to come get him, so he's a permanent. Not that permanent. As you might expect with a cute Siamese, he already has a new home waiting for him, up in Portland. I'll get some photos of him later.

Slurpy, the Lebanon torti, is fabulously outraged over a tiny kittens' entry into the house. So are Echo and Fantasia. Boys are so much more accepting of the invasion. Zach loves them.

I don't let them interact much with the rest because I don't know their FIV/Felk status. It's a very very small colony, but has had high mortality. In the end, we trapped three adult males and two adult females. However, I believe four of the adults are siblings. The other adult male was older. There were two tortis, one muted, one classic, both with medium hair, one black tux long hair adult male, younger though, maybe a year or two old, an orange and white medium hair male, also young and with medium length hair, and then the mature black tux long hair male.

There were two litters of kittens, one from each torti. I trapped the three first, from the one torti, and the lilac point died in surgery. The other two, a flamepoint male and a torti were relocated up to the feeders barn.

Then there was the second torti's litter, two of whom I never caught, and the other three now in my bathroom. I returned her, in case her two remaining kittens were still alive. They would need her. It would be heartless to take her out of there and leave them to die without her. I doubt they have survived, but I can hope. It is awkward to search for them. It has been very hard on me to think of those two kittens out there, with the weather turning vicious and wet and cold.

So two adults, the first one trapped, the mature male, then the torti with the kittens maybe, remain. The feeders plan to retrap them, also, and relocate them to their own barn, to make it easier on them and to give the cats a better life.

But their poop, although it has hardened and is formed, is reddish. I believe it is from the dye they can't digest, in the wet food. They seem to go for the Nine Lives Seafood or Salmon which is bright pink with red food dye. They won't eat dry kitten food and they won't eat other types of wet food and I don't know why but they sure go for that. I've never had any cat that likes that variety. I use it for trap bait only, because it's stinky, but then most cats won't eat it.

Maybe their sense of smell is damaged and cats eat when they smell and not otherwise. So maybe the stinky nature of that variety of wet cat food makes it appealing.


This girl is growing like a weed.
Dirty face from slurping wet food.


Well, I"ve solved some of they mystery surrounding the kittens failure to thrive. They are vomiting up pieces of plastic. They'd been eating garbage out there, including plastic wrappers.

The neighbor boy complained yesterday about the 3 foot by ten foot section of grass on one side of my rental, but within their fence. I can't get my no good push mower into that small of a space and I don't have a weed eater. I'd like to dig it out and cover it in gravel, but money is always an issue and time. I asked him to weed eat it, since they have all the yard equipment, he's off school yesterday and today, but that went nowhere.

He told me I should buy yard equipment and I told him straight up, "With what money?" So I'll go out there and hand clip, I guess, to keep them happy. Life is tough and neighbors sometimes make things tougher.

I got no friends on this block. Not unless they want me to trap some cat or rabbit or something.