Kittens in Trouble Part Two. Seed Warehouse Siamese Gives Birth in Trap

I came home early this morning, beat down, stomach hurting, aching for my bed. I'd been out trying to fill my quota of spots for tomorrow's clinic at the darn seed warehouse, where I already got 28 cats living there fixed. I trapped 27 a year ago February then got a female at the feed store there fixed later on.

The property is vast. Coming up with six unfixed cats amongst so many fixed cats in such an area was an undertaking. But by 1:00 midnight, I'd caught six. I caught three yesterday, including a young pregnant Siamese. But she didn't look that pregnant. She's just a teenager.

She didn't look pregnant enough to pop out six kittens in a small live trap in my garage while I was out trapping late. I got out of my car when I finally got home, visualizing my bed with smiles and warm fuzzies. I heard kittens.

I shone my light in both traps--the one occupied by the black female who could be pregnant too and then the Siamese. Beside the food I had put into the trap for her before leaving was a god awful sight--a malformed or partially formed red kitten glob. There was a leg and foot formed and sort of a head.

Beside it, was a dead white newborn kitten. I quickly frantically pulled a rabbit hutch out of the rafters, lined it with a yoga pad, put a carrier inside, and transferred mom into the covered hutch. She doesn't seem to know what's going on. Prediction? She doesn't care for them and by morning all four still alive are dead.

After transferring her into the hutch I picked up her four living newborns one by one and put them in with her. She just stared blankly. One was cold to the touch but moved when I touched him. I took him inside, grabbed a blow dryer and blew the kitten warm, then fed the newborn its first taste of food, through a tiny syringe, with his head hanging down, to avoid drowning him.




He has a significant bite on his side. Mom was in labor pain and bit at the cause--the kitten, or tried to pull him out. That could be a fatal injury to a newborn.

I then put him in with mom. She seemed disinterested. This is her first litter. This is the first time she's been live trapped and sat in someone's garage, fearing for her life. Lots of firsts for a teenage new mom from a seed warehouse.

Lots of exhaustion for me and this is just the beginning of kitten season. I have only five cats to take to tomorrow's clinic unless the Siamese crushes her kittens in the night. Or rather, in the four hours left of the night before i have to be up once again.

KATA in Sweet Home has not been spared the horrors of kitten season either. They were called by a woman whose dog ran outside and startled a mother cat giving birth. She ran, leaving behind a just born, umbilical cord still attached. KATA took in the kitten but the kitten had trauma from the mother running while he or she was coming out, at the umbilical cord. The kitten began bleeding and had to be euthanized.

They were also called by someone claiming a mother cat had a kitten stuck half out and had for two days. KATA went over and said the stench from the cats body, even though she was alive, was horrible. She took her straight to the vet who called her to say it was a long prolapsed and terribly infected uterus and that the poor female was probably ten years old and had multiple litters each year all her life. She too was euthanized.