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Midsummer Update C:
7 years ago
General
Hellooooo lovely people <3 Sorry for not being too active. Life has been crazy. Tomorrow we're headed to the hospital for an induction to get little Rosie to come, since she is too comfortable to come on her own :x Wish me luck. I'm very excited (and SO READY TO NOT BE PREGNANT after 40 weeks!!) and so is 
robertvarulfur -- but so is EVERYONE ELSE holy crap. You'd think we were social people with how many texts/calls I've gotten daily for the past three weeks asking if Rosie is here yet, omg. Over the past months, every bit of free time has been spent with SOMEONE visiting or demanding we visit.... along with planning my maternity leave for work. You'd think with only getting 6 weeks, it wouldn't take months and months of training my replacement.... but I've spent 6+ months and am still anxious about what is going on in my stead x'D
One other exciting thing is that we have another litter of foster kittens!!! And these are all pure black which is my favorite ;v; We started feeding feral mama cat (a very young black cat with mint-colored eyes) four months ago to try to get her tame enough to TNR (trap/neuter or spay/release), but then construction suddenly started on our street. They DESTROYED it and it was horrific. We had to park more than a block away and walk through the 100 degree+, muggy weather, past bulldozers and over huge trenches directly blocking our driveway for more than two months. When the construction started, the mama cat (who I've been calling Agatha because she looks identical to my indoor kitty Tabitha) was terrified and stopped showing up for a while, and when she showed up again she was very pregnant and had kittens under our neighbor's porch (though we didn't know where she had them so we couldn't get them). We couldn't catch her and leave her very young kittens to die, so we've been searching for the nest and trying to gain Agatha's trust for the past month.
Finally, two weeks ago, we found where Agatha was going and got permission from the neighbors to do whatever we have to to get those kittens out before bulldozers ran the kittens over/they became too wild to find homes for. Yay! So we watched for a week and were getting really anxious because we didn't know where under the house the nest was, and their house is so old that their crawlspace is...... not navigable, to say the least :x I'm frankly amazed that house is still standing/hasn't burned down from all the crap someone stuffed down there and how many broken boards there were. I was of course 39 weeks pregnant, so crawling under there is literally impossible for me, but Robert tried and had to give up.... so our only option would be to wait and hope we could catch the kittens when mama started bringing them out of the nest. We were praying she would bring them to our house to eat since we have been providing for mama.
Then, that Friday, I glance out the window and go "HOLY SHIT THERE'S A KITTEN!!!!!" and we both bolt out the door xD We carefully go over and Agatha, who is used to me enough that she won't immediately bolt if I get within 15 feet, is laying about a foot away from the groundhog hole that goes under the neighbor's porch. And laying right in front of her is a little black floofball. Robert circles around to distract Agatha and I crouch/crawl up to the baby, only to see that he is very sick. His eyes are so infected they are swollen and literally glued shut with green pus. He was also wheezing, and when I gently picked him up, he didn't fight me at all. It was just awful :(( I felt terrible to take him from Agatha, but it was clear he wouldn't survive otherwise and I know we'll be able to get him a great indoor home where he won't be at risk of being poisoned by one of the less-kind individuals in our town >:(
When I grab the little one, Robert has gotten close enough to Agatha on the other side that she decides to call it and go down into her burrow, but he is able to spot there is another kitten just sitting in the entrance. Her eyes were also bad, though not as bad as the boys, so she could still see and she started to run. He dives onto his belly and reaches for her but only managed to grab her foot, and for fear that Agatha would come back and bite him/he might hurt the baby, he has to let go and the second kitten disappears under the porch. He was heartbroken and we worried that we might have lost our chance.
Over the past week, we took little boy kitten to the vet and he had a full work-up. Worming, two types of antibiotics for his eyes, oral antibiotics for his lungs, and we used a special kitten-friendly flea bath on him and spent hours combing nits out of his fur. After a few days, his eyes were able to open and he started following me around, then after a nice, long flea combing where he fell asleep, he decided he should indeed be an indoor cat xD He is the sweetest little thing. He sees us and starts purring, he cuddles anytime we let him into our laps, and we have four friends fighting over who gets to take him once he's weaned off our milk replacer and we have the chance to test his mama for FeLv once we catch the other kitten and can TNR Agatha.
A week went by and we didn't see the other kitten, though Agatha kept coming to us for food. We were so worried because on Thursday, construction started up again after they took a two-week break for the 4th of July, and they had the serious machinery out and were flying up and down the road. Friday they planned on paving and I was so scared kitten would either be moved to another nest site or get run over. Friday was my husband's birthday and Friday the 13th, and I was 40 weeks pregnant, so pretty much everything was working against us distraction-wise xD But then, as I was giving boy kitten his last dose of nightly antibiotic and glanced out the window, I see Agatha and another little black floof sitting on the neighbor's porch!!! I gently put kitten #1 down and call for Robert, and we bolt outside again. We are so excited and anxious our hands are shaking as we discuss what the best option is -- to try to bribe them with food (the paving that morning made Agatha wary enough again that we were scared she would ignore the food until we left), or to try to sneak in and grab the kitten like we did last time. I made the call to try to go after the kitten directly again, so Robert goes around the other side of the porch to distract Agatha again and I go up to the kitten and get it cornered. Her eyes were much clearer than before (still gunky as heck) but she was SO SKINNY and small, half the size of her brother and her fur was patchy from a horrific flea infestation. But she was a lot more feral and immediately starts hissing and trying to get away from me. I crouch down and reach for her and have to dive before she makes it back to the nest hole, but I catch her around the waist and wrap my shirt around her. Aaahh the adrenaline xD Enough for this year, I'd say.
Yesterday I took her to the vet first thing in the morning and he was so happy we'd been able to get her because, like her brother, she'd probably have died if we didn't. She did have a bad respiratory infection, though not as bad as her brother, but she was emaciated from the fleas. There were so many eggs it took us more than an hour of combing to get out most of the nits, though we were able to at least kill everything with my flea bath stuff. (Side note, all hardwood floors is the best thing ever if you ever plan to foster because we have never had to deal with an infestation despite all our strays :DD) She got wormed and is on the same antibiotics as her brother, and the vet said he expects her to come around and fully recover and be adoptable in a month or so. Yay!!
Once we got home, we introduced the siblings again, and while sister was wary, the brother was instantly ready to play with another kitten. She would panic and curl up in her dark crate with her heating pad and he followed her in and would curl up next to her, and eventually started grooming her. When she came around to it, he tried for a half hour to get her to play with him by batting at her and pouncing around, lol.
By the end of yesterday, she feels comfortable enough around me and her brother to follow him everywhere, including straight up into my lap!!! And this morning when I laid on the floor in the foster room, she came over and curled up to sleep on my side until her brother decided it was playtime and pounced her haha.
I'm so happy they are doing so well now and they were caught before Rosie arrived/someone poisons them or they get run over/eaten by a hawk/etc. Now we just have Agatha to worry about post-Rosie.
Agatha wasn't happy losing her babies and I feel so terrible separating her from them, but now that there are no more kittens we can catch her next week after my maternity leave starts and bring her to be fixed/vaccinated/treated for fleas. We will release her into our foster room for a week or so and if she shows us any signs of being willing to tame down, we'll keep her and possibly rehome her once she is much calmer -- if not, we'll open the door that goes outside and let her back as a true TNR kitty.
So, yeah! Lots of stuff xD Wish us luck!! I hope you all are doing well, also :D
robertvarulfur -- but so is EVERYONE ELSE holy crap. You'd think we were social people with how many texts/calls I've gotten daily for the past three weeks asking if Rosie is here yet, omg. Over the past months, every bit of free time has been spent with SOMEONE visiting or demanding we visit.... along with planning my maternity leave for work. You'd think with only getting 6 weeks, it wouldn't take months and months of training my replacement.... but I've spent 6+ months and am still anxious about what is going on in my stead x'DOne other exciting thing is that we have another litter of foster kittens!!! And these are all pure black which is my favorite ;v; We started feeding feral mama cat (a very young black cat with mint-colored eyes) four months ago to try to get her tame enough to TNR (trap/neuter or spay/release), but then construction suddenly started on our street. They DESTROYED it and it was horrific. We had to park more than a block away and walk through the 100 degree+, muggy weather, past bulldozers and over huge trenches directly blocking our driveway for more than two months. When the construction started, the mama cat (who I've been calling Agatha because she looks identical to my indoor kitty Tabitha) was terrified and stopped showing up for a while, and when she showed up again she was very pregnant and had kittens under our neighbor's porch (though we didn't know where she had them so we couldn't get them). We couldn't catch her and leave her very young kittens to die, so we've been searching for the nest and trying to gain Agatha's trust for the past month.
Finally, two weeks ago, we found where Agatha was going and got permission from the neighbors to do whatever we have to to get those kittens out before bulldozers ran the kittens over/they became too wild to find homes for. Yay! So we watched for a week and were getting really anxious because we didn't know where under the house the nest was, and their house is so old that their crawlspace is...... not navigable, to say the least :x I'm frankly amazed that house is still standing/hasn't burned down from all the crap someone stuffed down there and how many broken boards there were. I was of course 39 weeks pregnant, so crawling under there is literally impossible for me, but Robert tried and had to give up.... so our only option would be to wait and hope we could catch the kittens when mama started bringing them out of the nest. We were praying she would bring them to our house to eat since we have been providing for mama.
Then, that Friday, I glance out the window and go "HOLY SHIT THERE'S A KITTEN!!!!!" and we both bolt out the door xD We carefully go over and Agatha, who is used to me enough that she won't immediately bolt if I get within 15 feet, is laying about a foot away from the groundhog hole that goes under the neighbor's porch. And laying right in front of her is a little black floofball. Robert circles around to distract Agatha and I crouch/crawl up to the baby, only to see that he is very sick. His eyes are so infected they are swollen and literally glued shut with green pus. He was also wheezing, and when I gently picked him up, he didn't fight me at all. It was just awful :(( I felt terrible to take him from Agatha, but it was clear he wouldn't survive otherwise and I know we'll be able to get him a great indoor home where he won't be at risk of being poisoned by one of the less-kind individuals in our town >:(
When I grab the little one, Robert has gotten close enough to Agatha on the other side that she decides to call it and go down into her burrow, but he is able to spot there is another kitten just sitting in the entrance. Her eyes were also bad, though not as bad as the boys, so she could still see and she started to run. He dives onto his belly and reaches for her but only managed to grab her foot, and for fear that Agatha would come back and bite him/he might hurt the baby, he has to let go and the second kitten disappears under the porch. He was heartbroken and we worried that we might have lost our chance.
Over the past week, we took little boy kitten to the vet and he had a full work-up. Worming, two types of antibiotics for his eyes, oral antibiotics for his lungs, and we used a special kitten-friendly flea bath on him and spent hours combing nits out of his fur. After a few days, his eyes were able to open and he started following me around, then after a nice, long flea combing where he fell asleep, he decided he should indeed be an indoor cat xD He is the sweetest little thing. He sees us and starts purring, he cuddles anytime we let him into our laps, and we have four friends fighting over who gets to take him once he's weaned off our milk replacer and we have the chance to test his mama for FeLv once we catch the other kitten and can TNR Agatha.
A week went by and we didn't see the other kitten, though Agatha kept coming to us for food. We were so worried because on Thursday, construction started up again after they took a two-week break for the 4th of July, and they had the serious machinery out and were flying up and down the road. Friday they planned on paving and I was so scared kitten would either be moved to another nest site or get run over. Friday was my husband's birthday and Friday the 13th, and I was 40 weeks pregnant, so pretty much everything was working against us distraction-wise xD But then, as I was giving boy kitten his last dose of nightly antibiotic and glanced out the window, I see Agatha and another little black floof sitting on the neighbor's porch!!! I gently put kitten #1 down and call for Robert, and we bolt outside again. We are so excited and anxious our hands are shaking as we discuss what the best option is -- to try to bribe them with food (the paving that morning made Agatha wary enough again that we were scared she would ignore the food until we left), or to try to sneak in and grab the kitten like we did last time. I made the call to try to go after the kitten directly again, so Robert goes around the other side of the porch to distract Agatha again and I go up to the kitten and get it cornered. Her eyes were much clearer than before (still gunky as heck) but she was SO SKINNY and small, half the size of her brother and her fur was patchy from a horrific flea infestation. But she was a lot more feral and immediately starts hissing and trying to get away from me. I crouch down and reach for her and have to dive before she makes it back to the nest hole, but I catch her around the waist and wrap my shirt around her. Aaahh the adrenaline xD Enough for this year, I'd say.
Yesterday I took her to the vet first thing in the morning and he was so happy we'd been able to get her because, like her brother, she'd probably have died if we didn't. She did have a bad respiratory infection, though not as bad as her brother, but she was emaciated from the fleas. There were so many eggs it took us more than an hour of combing to get out most of the nits, though we were able to at least kill everything with my flea bath stuff. (Side note, all hardwood floors is the best thing ever if you ever plan to foster because we have never had to deal with an infestation despite all our strays :DD) She got wormed and is on the same antibiotics as her brother, and the vet said he expects her to come around and fully recover and be adoptable in a month or so. Yay!!
Once we got home, we introduced the siblings again, and while sister was wary, the brother was instantly ready to play with another kitten. She would panic and curl up in her dark crate with her heating pad and he followed her in and would curl up next to her, and eventually started grooming her. When she came around to it, he tried for a half hour to get her to play with him by batting at her and pouncing around, lol.
By the end of yesterday, she feels comfortable enough around me and her brother to follow him everywhere, including straight up into my lap!!! And this morning when I laid on the floor in the foster room, she came over and curled up to sleep on my side until her brother decided it was playtime and pounced her haha.
I'm so happy they are doing so well now and they were caught before Rosie arrived/someone poisons them or they get run over/eaten by a hawk/etc. Now we just have Agatha to worry about post-Rosie.
Agatha wasn't happy losing her babies and I feel so terrible separating her from them, but now that there are no more kittens we can catch her next week after my maternity leave starts and bring her to be fixed/vaccinated/treated for fleas. We will release her into our foster room for a week or so and if she shows us any signs of being willing to tame down, we'll keep her and possibly rehome her once she is much calmer -- if not, we'll open the door that goes outside and let her back as a true TNR kitty.
So, yeah! Lots of stuff xD Wish us luck!! I hope you all are doing well, also :D
GOOD LUCK AAAAAHHH!!!