Our Rescued Feral Mother & Her Five Babies ......
4 June 2021
Several weeks ago, we trapped & brought indoors a heavily-pregnant feral cat who had been feeding at one of our three feeding stations on our property ... Ten days later, she gave birth to 5 babies ... When the babies were three weeks old, I began to gently stroke them, & got hissed & spat & pounced at by an alarmed mother protecting her precious babies ...
I have children of my own, so I fully understood her ... & bore the scratches on my hand stoically ... & after a few days, I began to carefully pick up any babies that were awake, talking to them & stroking them, to get them used to me ... One kitten, who is the biggest in the litter, took his cue from his mother, & hissed & spat at me ... Three weeks on, the five babies are all thriving, playfully chasing one another around the room, with their mother looking proudly on, but still resisting my every effort to make friends with her, & growling at me when I handle her babies ... These babies are now eating four meals a day, plus Purina kitten kibble, & their mum has been eating four big meals daily, plus her adult kibble, to keep her healthy & able to feed all her babies with milk, which she still does when they want it ....
Cat & kitten food isn’t cheap, & large bags of litter ... & desexing of mother & babies will take place as soon as the babies are old & big enough ... To those who have donated to our Rescue service, we give our humble thanks, because without you, we would not be able to save babies like these ... And we now have another mother with five babies who are a bit older than these ones, visiting our feeding station in our side garden ... And I know two more pregnant feral cats will have given birth 3-4 weeks ago .... So here is a heart-felt, huge thank you to those who have assisted us financially ...