About two months ago, we adopted a local stray cat. I have a friend who has friends at the SPCA who says she can get the cat fixed for me for under $40.00. Great! I had an appointment for next week.
Now? No can do. This cat I adopted (Harley) has to be under a year old. Therefore, imagine my shock when, a couple of nights ago (as I was watching TV in the living room), I heard sounds of distress from Harley. I went into the kitchen to see what could be wrong with her. Now, I’ve only had boy cats before, and didn’t grow up around cats at all (my Mom hated them). My older cat, Ponch, is a good hunter and I’ve often seen him ‘playing’ with something he’s caught, be it a mouse or a sparrow. So when I went into the kitchen and saw Harley apparently playing with something that was tiny, black, wet, and rat-like, I seriously did not know what was going on! (Yes, go ahead and laugh; everyone else has!) So I woke my sister. She came out, took one look and said “Damn. She wasn’t even very big!” Then I understood.:smack: The tiny black rat-like thing was a new-born kitten, and Harley wasn’t playing with it, she was licking the sac off of it!
On my sister’s advice, I got a box, lined it with an old towel, and put Harley and her kitten in the box. She was clearly still in labor, breathing very hard, licking her lips a lot, etc. We probably sat for an hour and watched her, but she seemed to want to be left alone, so we went into the living room.
By the time I went to bed, there still wasn’t another kitten yet, but when I got up the next morning, there was a second one. I’m kind of glad there weren’t more.
Harley seems to be a pretty good Mamma given her young age. She will get out of the box to eat, and for me to give her a few skritches, and to use the litter pan, then it’s right back in the box. The biggest problem I’ve had is that she keeps laying on one of the kittens. Somehow, it’s always the same kitten that she lays on. And just now, I heard distressed mewling behind me, and assumed Harley was laying on her kitten again. But when I turned around, one of the babies had managed to get out of the box but couldn’t manage to get back in!
I know we can’t keep these babies; that would give us four cats, in addition to the three snakes, two dwarf hamsters, newly acquired rabbit (we’re still working on the Partridge in a Pear Tree) we already have! Unless you live in the country, that’s too many animals!
But damn, they are tiny little bundles just overflowing with the miracle of new life!
In a week they’ll be more fun, just for now they’re going to be little wet spider-thingies.
