River Kitten Scramble

 I was contacted about kittens living along the river pedestrian path and down the steep embankment.

The lady feeding them said she spotted them just a few weeks back, and started leaving food.  She didn't know for sure if there was a mom nearby.  A homeless man had fed them but he died recently.

I agreed to help, with a little anxiety, not knowing where I could place the kittens with so many rescues already full.  These are some of the photos she sent.

She met me there Sunday morning.  She usually doesn't feed in the morning so I thought chances of catching any at a time she doesn't feed them might be slim.

Within three minutes of setting a trap, the mom cat she wasn't sure was still there, was caught.

I named her Tempest and fortunately Radpets got her in to be fixed yesterday.  She was not a happy cat being held in a holding cage in the garage.   She was a very very hungry cat however and ate three cans of wet food within a couple hours of being caught.

However the kittens were not coming up the embankment to where the trap was set and she usually feeds.  There is a lot of traffic along the path, both bikes and pedestrians, also homeless folk.

I went back Monday evening a couple hours prior to the time she usually feeds and set the trap farther down the embankment.   I caught two in one trap within an hour.   A calico and a torbie.   When getting them back up to the path, a little tabby tux stared at me, from the brush only feet from me.   I felt she was so hungry I could reach down and pick her up but when I looked back, she had vanished.

The calico and the torbi

Dash, the boy kitten who escaped into my car dashboard

Dash the kitten up in the car dash

The next catch was a tabby on white.   I transferred him into the cage with the girls, because I had only three traps in all and wanted to set two at a time.   Meanwhile the feeder lady and her girlfriend showed up along with a friend, the adult daughter of some folks I trapped for.  She wanted to tame the little calico.  She's tamed kittens before.   I was going to transfer her into the carrier from the trap but this attempt went south and the little tabby on white bit my finger and scooted out somehow, into the rest of my car---somewhere.

This event stopped everything in its tracks.  I couldn't get out of my car, not knowing where the kitten might be.  I didn't want him to escape.   I searched and searched for an hour at least.  Hot from the closed car windows, the stress, and the effort.  I was contorting my body to look under seats and up in the dash in ways I have not turned nor twisted in years.   

I conceded defeat in the end, and opened all doors and windows.  If he was to escape, it should be here, along the river, in his familiar home.   The feeder ladies and friend watched to see if he'd come out, but they saw nothing.  They helped unload my car, to search better--nothing.   I knew then he was indeed somewheere in the dash.  

I asked them to check the set traps and there was a fourth kitten in one of the traps.   The little tabby tux I had seen.  By now we knew there were six kittens, not five as the feeder had thought.  I was home by 11:00 but not in bed because I took some parts off my dash to look for the kitten.  I spotted the kitten down under a speaker cover on the top of the dash.  I had removed the cover and then the speaker itself but the kitten just moved farther down.  I had removed the glove compartment and searched around the heater core and AC heater fan but nothing.

Exhaustion set in.   And common sense.   I left his siblings in the car, in two traps and set another trap between them.   I should have done this to begin with but......

Yesterday morning, when I was leaving with his mom in my personal car, for the clinic, I checked the trap in the cat carrier car and he was in it.   Big sigh of relief.  After taking mom to the clinic, I moved the four kittens into my bathroom.  Three girls and the dash boy.   The calico went home with my friend later in the day.   

I picked up the mom from the clinic and after that, it was crash out.  I was so tired out.  I went to bed shortly after 5:00 p.m. and slept til 9:30 p.m., was up awhile, then back in bed.   This morning I moved the mom to the bathroom with her three kittens.  It didn't go well. I thought it would because they'd been meowing back and forth from garage to bathroom.   The holding cage she was in was merely through a wall to the bathroom.

She attacked her kittens repeatedly within the first half hour.  I went in and brought little Dash out for awhile, holding him, syringe feeding him.  He suddenly bolted from my arms, ran out into the living room but let me pick him up again with no trouble.  The runs to the cat yard and cat yard itself are not kitten proof.  Some of the fencing has spaces where a kitten could easily escape.  It's meant for adult cats.

Tonight I return to catch last two kittens.   I was too tired last night.

The kittens are about 9 weeks old.   I'm trying to find a rescue to take them.  And a barn home to take mom since she really has no permanent feeder anymore, after the homeless man died.  She's been ravenous since I trapped her.

Tabby tux little girl