hey there,
I'm a newby here and I have to admit, that I didn't really search the forums for too long, so please bear with me if I ask the same question someone has already asked before or just post me the link to the answers.
anyway, I hope you can help me out here:
where to begin... I live in Thailand on the Island Phuket with my boyfriend and we now have been talking about getting two kittens for a while. usually you can just go to a temple and ask there, cause there are thousends of stray cats here - or the owners just don't bother having their cats spayed, and as in buddhism killing the kittens is not an option, they just dump them at the nearest wat/temple.
then this collegue of my boyfriend tells us a stray cat had appointed him her new feeder. three weeks after that she littered four kittens in his cupboard. As he has to work during the day and cannot leave the house open he carried the babies out on the porch and put them in a cardboard box. as soon as he came home at night and opened the door, the mother cat carried them back inside in his cupboard, so he had to put them outside again. after that we went to see them and immediately fell in love with them, two of them in particular. the next day the mother carried them away into the bushes. as she would still come back for food and strokes our friend then found the nest and carried the babies back to the porch. this went back and forth and then i went there again a couple of days after the first encounter and suggested we make the box bigger and more sheltered. so we added space and gave the nest a proper roof and little door, at the same time preventing ourselves from being able to just reach inside and take the kittens out. after that the mother appearently accepted the box.
so for the last week i went there everyday to get them all used to me. i talked to them and gave the mother lots of attention and strokes while avoiding to pick up the little ones and just letting them sniff me. also i fed the mother and gave her water so whenever I arrived she was already waiting for me. in the mean time the kittens grew and started to get curious, going on little adventure trips. the mother seemed comfortable with me, as she fed her babies while obviously enjoying being stroked by me. yesterday my favorite ones were climbing all over me and I could stroke them and play a little and they seem very tame to me already. they must be about three weeks old now.
okay, so today I go there and the mother is waiting for me (no food and water left, I sometimes wonder if our friend forgets to feed her in the morning) and the kittens gone! again...
so I fed her and stroked her for a while (I DID ask her, where she took her babies, but she didn't oblige) and finally followed her (she at a point turning and hissing back at me) and found the nest. well, not really, it's in this thicket and I couldn't see inside but I heard the kittens.
Now: what to do? Are they by now tame enough that it doesn't matter if they're away from people for a few days? I guess that they should soon be fit enough to follow their mother back to the house and start eating cat food. maybe not, I don't know. I never had a cat before. Lots of temporary friends but never my own. I'm just scared that they might grow wild after all. and also I am totally unsure about at what age we should take them home. usually eight weeks seem fine if the mother cat lives in a household already. this one nobody knows about - she might have had another owner before but again we don't know. she looks great though. very pretty cat - not like the average thai stray cat. still she seems to have some eye infection as one eye frequently waters some darkbrown stuff. two of the kittens (curiously not the two we picked) have the same thing and also dirty stuff coming out of their noses. i wiped the one kitten's eyes with a damp cloth, gently rubbing in short strokes over it to soften the crust and finally wiped it off so it could open it's eyes again - the kitten totally relaxed in my hand and started purring by the way
i already thought about taking them to the vet but i don't know if i can seperate them from the mother just yet.
so many questions... I' would really appreciate any advice whatsoever.
thanks in advance,
franny
I'm a newby here and I have to admit, that I didn't really search the forums for too long, so please bear with me if I ask the same question someone has already asked before or just post me the link to the answers.
anyway, I hope you can help me out here:
where to begin... I live in Thailand on the Island Phuket with my boyfriend and we now have been talking about getting two kittens for a while. usually you can just go to a temple and ask there, cause there are thousends of stray cats here - or the owners just don't bother having their cats spayed, and as in buddhism killing the kittens is not an option, they just dump them at the nearest wat/temple.
then this collegue of my boyfriend tells us a stray cat had appointed him her new feeder. three weeks after that she littered four kittens in his cupboard. As he has to work during the day and cannot leave the house open he carried the babies out on the porch and put them in a cardboard box. as soon as he came home at night and opened the door, the mother cat carried them back inside in his cupboard, so he had to put them outside again. after that we went to see them and immediately fell in love with them, two of them in particular. the next day the mother carried them away into the bushes. as she would still come back for food and strokes our friend then found the nest and carried the babies back to the porch. this went back and forth and then i went there again a couple of days after the first encounter and suggested we make the box bigger and more sheltered. so we added space and gave the nest a proper roof and little door, at the same time preventing ourselves from being able to just reach inside and take the kittens out. after that the mother appearently accepted the box.
so for the last week i went there everyday to get them all used to me. i talked to them and gave the mother lots of attention and strokes while avoiding to pick up the little ones and just letting them sniff me. also i fed the mother and gave her water so whenever I arrived she was already waiting for me. in the mean time the kittens grew and started to get curious, going on little adventure trips. the mother seemed comfortable with me, as she fed her babies while obviously enjoying being stroked by me. yesterday my favorite ones were climbing all over me and I could stroke them and play a little and they seem very tame to me already. they must be about three weeks old now.
okay, so today I go there and the mother is waiting for me (no food and water left, I sometimes wonder if our friend forgets to feed her in the morning) and the kittens gone! again...
so I fed her and stroked her for a while (I DID ask her, where she took her babies, but she didn't oblige) and finally followed her (she at a point turning and hissing back at me) and found the nest. well, not really, it's in this thicket and I couldn't see inside but I heard the kittens.
Now: what to do? Are they by now tame enough that it doesn't matter if they're away from people for a few days? I guess that they should soon be fit enough to follow their mother back to the house and start eating cat food. maybe not, I don't know. I never had a cat before. Lots of temporary friends but never my own. I'm just scared that they might grow wild after all. and also I am totally unsure about at what age we should take them home. usually eight weeks seem fine if the mother cat lives in a household already. this one nobody knows about - she might have had another owner before but again we don't know. she looks great though. very pretty cat - not like the average thai stray cat. still she seems to have some eye infection as one eye frequently waters some darkbrown stuff. two of the kittens (curiously not the two we picked) have the same thing and also dirty stuff coming out of their noses. i wiped the one kitten's eyes with a damp cloth, gently rubbing in short strokes over it to soften the crust and finally wiped it off so it could open it's eyes again - the kitten totally relaxed in my hand and started purring by the way
i already thought about taking them to the vet but i don't know if i can seperate them from the mother just yet.
so many questions... I' would really appreciate any advice whatsoever.
thanks in advance,
franny
