Ahh....rescuing kittens has begun for 2014!!

First call today from the local humane society, asking me if my rescue can take 4 newborns who were brought in. Umbilical cords still intact.

It's so frustrating that they don't ask questions, where the babies were found and educate them on the fact that moms don't simply abandon their babies, they were well cared for until the human showed up, and are simply hiding until the human leaves.

But noooo! They have to steal her kids, imagine what she feels when she sees they are gone.

I've been trying to get them to change the newborn intakes, rather than taking them, ask the person if they can return them where they were found and give it about 4 weeks. Before feral and before they can run away from you, but after they are stronger and have their momma caring for them.

Saddens me so.

Anyway! Here's the first little crew of this year's kitten season!

Oh my goodness what little angels.  It certainly would make sense to ask about the kittens.  The poor mama who must be frantic.  Also you will soon have another litter...  The world is just maddening! 

It is so kind and generous of you to take care of these little ones.

Thanks so much.

Yes, in rescuing countless momma cats and their kids through the years, I have come to fully understand how much the babies mean to them, the hardest part is after they are done nursing and I have to seperate her from them.....always heartbreaking.......

So it hurts my heart when unknowing people pull litters, thinking since they don't find any mom around that she abandoned them, and it couldn't be further from the truth, they are just out of THEIR site, waiting for them to leave so they can get back to tending to their kids.

I imagine her watching from a distance, the babes being taken away, and what that must feel like for her.

This new herd is just the beginning of many months of kittens, getting the moms spayed and returned, and those who can not be, finding an outdoor/barn home for them to live.

It's alot of work from here on, very fulfilling, but never without some heartache as well. It's pure torture when all of my foster homes get full, and I am not able to pull anymore for a period, and all of the moms and babies who end up at the shelter and are euthanized, because I can't take in anymore. It's dreadful.

If only people knew there is a better way, leave the kids alone, let mom care for them for 4 weeks, I can then trap mom and get her spayed and take the kids into foster, get them fixed, vaccinated, etc and find them homes.

My dh said to me last night, "you write so well, why not write a letter to the newspaper about this, maybe it will reach some people".

I just may do that!!

With a little luck you can find a nursing queen who will adopt them.  I usually get one every spring who just accepts all comers -- I just love mama cats like that (they aren't all that way).  So they get to play wet nurse through kitten season and get spayed when it's over.  I still have my BIG girl from last year who had five babies of her own and then raised two more litters of orphans. and a couple of singles before it was all over.  Of course she's been for adoption since last fall but I've only had ONE person interested, and they have just moved into a new house so we haven't had a meet and greet yet.  Four of her five babies were bobtailed, altough she has a perfectly normal tail.  I wish I could add a photo here but don't know how.  This year I have no room for mama cats as I still have three left from last year as well as some of their nearly grown kittens.  I took in too many at the same time last year and this is the result.

Someone else took in too many at once last spring too.....check this out.

http://blog.petflow.com/60-kittens-...s-woman-did-something-that-moved-me-to-tears/

My bottle foster mom just called me, the black and white kitten is dying. The last one I would have thought this would happen to as he is feisty, biggest, vocal, very strong.

I'm heartbroken for him. It never gets easier. 5 days of life. Poor little puddin butt. 

I am so sorry about the black and white kitten.  I hope the rest are all right.  Sometimes those extra strong ones actually inhale the milk and get pneumonia while the weaker ones do OK.  A friend of mine is bottle raising one of those strong ones, as a single, and she has shown on her Facebook page how tiny she had to make the hole in the nipple and now she has switched to using glass bottles instead of plastic because he sucks so hard even with the tiny hole that he just collapses the plastic bottle.  I'll be having a break from bottle babies this year, except maybe a night or two if I'm substituting for a regular bottle baby foster -- last year two of the mamas we pulled from animal control got sick and one rejected her babies (for a week, but who knew?) and the other would have nursed them but she was sick too, so  I rotated the litters, I'd feed 5 and let the one mama feed 5 and then after she cleaned her pile I would swap them out and let her clean my pile.  It worked.  Wishing you good luck with the others.  BTW not sure what you use for formula, but my friend who is the bottle baby expert swears that she will never use canned KMR again, babies always get sick and the runs from it, but the powdered form is excellent.

Red Top Rescue said:

 
I am so sorry about the black and white kitten.  I hope the rest are all right.  Sometimes those extra strong ones actually inhale the milk and get pneumonia while the weaker ones do OK.  A friend of mine is bottle raising one of those strong ones, as a single, and she has shown on her Facebook page how tiny she had to make the hole in the nipple and now she has switched to using glass bottles instead of plastic because he sucks so hard even with the tiny hole that he just collapses the plastic bottle.  I'll be having a break from bottle babies this year, except maybe a night or two if I'm substituting for a regular bottle baby foster -- last year two of the mamas we pulled from animal control got sick and one rejected her babies (for a week, but who knew?) and the other would have nursed them but she was sick too, so  I rotated the litters, I'd feed 5 and let the one mama feed 5 and then after she cleaned her pile I would swap them out and let her clean my pile.  It worked.  Wishing you good luck with the others.  BTW not sure what you use for formula, but my friend who is the bottle baby expert swears that she will never use canned KMR again, babies always get sick and the runs from it, but the powdered form is excellent.

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I sure know that one too, and had a bad year last year as well, pulling from the shelter before they are killed, and of course they get lots of exposure to viruses there, which can wipe out kittens so young easily.

Losing babies, all kittens and adults alike, never gets easier. I mourn for the newborns, who should never have been taken from their momma so early, people thinking mom abandoned them, they just don't understand, and even more, the moms should be fixed and not having unwanted, homeless babies brought into this world to suffer the life she is.

For the adults who have those babies stolen from them, literally. For all the kittens and cats I can't save, seeing their faces and knowing there is nothing I can do to help them, who get euthanized, because my foster homes are maxed out, yeah, not an easy job rescuing.....

I have also used a surrogate momma, several times actually, with great results. Just have to be careful not to overload mom as she might possibly decide she's had enough. I know of one who did do that infact, although my guess of the details is they put too much on her.

Of course there is also the infecious factor, since we really don't know anything health-wise about mom, and she might be felv positive, which will infect all of the babies she feeds.

It can be tricky for sure!

I use only the powder KMR. 

I am so sorry to hear about the black and white kitten.  My thoughts are with you.  You do so many wonderful things for all of these cats and kittens.  You are truly an angel!

ShadowsRescue said:

 
I am so sorry to hear about the black and white kitten.  My thoughts are with you.  You do so many wonderful things for all of these cats and kittens.  You are truly an angel!

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Thanks so much. I truly love what I do, and will never stop rescuing, but gosh, I could sure use some time off from losing cats and kittens. A couple years maybe? It just stays with me for so long, overlaps even, so I never really recoop much......

Obviously there are many, many more happy endings than loss, but somehow the occasional loss outweighs the many successes. At least it feels that way sometimes. 

The other 3 babies are still doing fine. Too young to know their outcome just yet, just 6 days old now. 

Sometimes baby kittens won't make it, many more do than not for sure, just depends, age, health, spirit.....I would never have guessed this blk and wht little boy would go, such a feisty one! 

It always hurts, and I can't help but feel I somehow failed, I know I'm good at what I do, but if I lose one, that feeling of failure just comes, despite knowing I did everything I possibly could.

I must say, losing adult cats, very few of course, but I don't recoop from them for a very long time.........like my Stella, sweetheart, little doll I lost months back at 3 years old to cancer. How wrong was that?!  What 3 yr old cat gets stomach cancer?? Shocking.

Still can't go there She was one of my cat room residents.