Sunday, January 18, 2009

Orphaned Kittens group II

These are the second bunch of orphaned kittens I had this year. These were never on the bottle, the pictures were taken a few days after they came to our house. They are Kansas cats, my daughter lives in KS, she stays with some friends of hers and takes care of a relative who lives nearby and works in a greenhouse. All is well and fine my daughters friends like cats, they don't LOVE cats and they didn't like the neighborhood cats deciding their house was the place to be. They live on the edge of a small town and it seems a great deal of the town cats who weren't house cats decided to live @ their house, on the deck, by the pool etc. Then one of the cats had kittens, my daughter Sissy gave them away or some of them I believe, then another cat had kittens etc. These were the product of one of the litters, mama was wild. So they aren't exactly orphans but they were heading for being feral cats or going somewhere else. So Sissy calls and says I'm bringing you kittens, OK? I say no. I have 3 kittens, actually 2 @ the time. She calls again and said what if something happened to your kittens, you need back up. I finally gave in and one Thursday evening here she comes bringing the kittens. Sissy left and went to here sisters because I had to work and her sis had some time off. So I have these kittens in a pet carrier. I bring them in the house and open the door and they are a little skittish I think? I make sure they know where the cat box and the food and water are and my husband comes home from a trip so we go to bed. The next morning no kittens? I call and call and no kittens, I finally find them under a large piece of furniture and they are acting like they are completely wild. They did hiss the night before but I figured it was the car ride and the pet carrier. So I got a yardstick and push them out one by one and give them to my husband to hold. They calm down some but when they get away from people or see the dog they are like WILD. By the time I leave for work about 9 am they are sleeping on my husbands lap, he has that effect on animals, he doesn't like cats particularly but he spoils them? All weekend they are a little weird and skittish but I think they acclimated well considering these pictures were taken later in the week?
All of this is leading somewhere, the kittens had not been touched by human hands till the day I got them, when she caught them to put them in the cat carrier that was the first time anyone had touched them? She neglected to tell me this till we had them tamed down. Also they ranged from having a short tail, to a stub to NO tail basically. Their names were Tail, Stubby, and Bobby, very easy to remember. They were also marked weird and fought over their food like they were wild animals? I did look up whether bobcats and domestic cats could interbreed and supposedly it doesn't happen but these look like they may have some bobcat in them, if not Manx probably. As you can see they soon became completely relaxed in the home environment. This is Stubby.

And Stubby a few weeks ago on the dog bed in the sun.
And Bobby who is marked weirdest of all. He is really prettier than that picture. People who haven't been here for awhile tell me how beautiful he is and then they tell me my cats are FAT, they really like Special Kitty cat food, I think I buy more cat food than dog food.
There is no picture of Tail lately. Tail was only with us for a couple months and lost his life in the car engine. It was a warm morning in October, one of those 80 degree days we still get then and I hadn't driven the car since the night before but for some reason Tail was in it. He didn't suffer but it upset me and my husband had to come home and fix the car before I could go to work. I normally call all the cats to the cat shelf if I can't see them so I know they are out of the way of the car but I had gotten lax about it since they were getting older.
Stubby and Bobby are alive and well, they have VERY thick coats and are not skinny cats by any means. They are great hunters too. Mice mostly but snakes too. We have little tiny ringnecks which I despise. I don't like snakes OK, I HATE snakes but for some reason we have more snakes up here on this landscaped hill than we ever did down @ the "old" house which is where the actual farm buildings are. At least I haven't seen any in the house for awhile! Ringnecks are not any bigger than an earthworm until they are fully grown but I still don't like them. These kittens declared war on them, I think I counted 10 headless snake bodies and that's just the ones I saw, good kitties.
Here's a group picture taken this month. You can't see Stubby he's in the back, I'd given them some beef trimmings when I was making stew. Bobby, Meany, Paris, Crusoe, and Devil is the black one.

4 comments:

FREE ALL CARDS said...

Very cute creatures! I so love cats!

Thanks for sharing!
Freeallcards
www.freeallcards.com

Anonymous said...

If they have Bob Cat in them then they are going to be huge. I had a cat when I was a kid. The people who gave her to use said she was 6 months old she was 6 weeks or so. She never could meow. Her markings where a lot off the tabby but she could pass. When we got her she was not a friendly cat when she died at 18 she was a cuddle puss. mind you a 29lb cat is a bit hard to cuddle with. You often loose sensation in limbs. So I guess bobcats and feral cats can cross breed. My vet told me its not very common.

TC said...

Thanks for the heads up Rhyan, they are sort of large kittens but not huge yet. They have this weird way of walking though, it's sort of more a hop, more pronounced in Bobby. They are the kittens that everyone sees and says are FAT though? These are friendly but not like the other kittens were, we had no problems keeping them outside and they are better hunters than the other cats.

TC said...

Thanks for the compliment Free all cards, and thanks for commenting.