Caring For Abandoned and Feral Cats

Yeah but my youngest guy, Willow, will protect me.

 

Princess's stomach area seems a little bit bigger, and harder. She isn't interested in me feeling her belly (that's a surprise, right? lol). However, it does seem a bit bigger and more full, but her fur is so soft and plush, and since she wasn't small when she arrived, its just hard to tell. Today I got it in my head she is looking a little teeny bit sway backed, which is another sign. I think she's gotten bigger overall...I think.

I don't see any way possible she could have had them without me knowing. I'm always able to find her, no matter what, asap. She sleeps in the same place on the porch every night - which is in the top of a bin where we store some old blankets and leaf raking sheets. I've run my hand quickly under her belly to see if I feel her teats getting any bigger. All I feel is fur. In the past I don't remember ever being able to feel a cat's teats before they had the kittens. It was always after that they were noticeable (that I could feel).

what a hell of a thing to be wondering about...

 

These females get unmistakenly pregnant-looking. Did you hear screaming outside your place, like mating was going on? Maybe she is already spayed. That would be so lucky!

 

I've tried to think back and remember...it seems like I did hear some screaming during that time. This old house is built super tight and its hard to hear anything other than screaming sirens going down the road in front of the house or cats screaming right outside my bedroom window (as long as I'm in that room) or on the porch (if I'm in the kitchen). Back to the point, it seems I did hear some cat hollering going on...never knowing if it was the 2 toms or Princess and a tom or whatever. Seems I thought well, this is expected

I got to thinking today - lets say she got pregnant 2/8...well she still wouldn't necessarily be due for a few more days.

She has been acting more and more like she is searching for a "secret" place. I tried to slip and feel her stomach some today, and she was having none of that!!!

 

Lots of times these ferals have given birth on the full moon.

Hubby thinks new moon is when it happens but not with these cats. It's the full moon that brings the kittens they are carrying.

 

With humans as well, the full moon brings on labor/having a child. I've even known more than one doctor personally that has said this!

Its the pull the moon has on the water. I know cats aren't 65% water like we are, but I definitely think their little body chemistry is similar when it comes to giving birth.


EDIT: ah hell now! I just did a google search and cats are 67% water!!! So for sure they would be subject to the same pull from the moon that we are!


2nd edit: I always thought humans were more than that in percentage of water...but it says we are born at 78% and it goes down by the 1st year. Grown men supposedly are just 60% water.

ok, enough water-in-us facts.

 

Meezie's were born near last full moon.

I don't know that Mystic or Coon Tail can wait until the next.

Mystic didn't come around today now that I think about it. She may have had hers.

I've got probably 12 new kittens coming added all together.

I've got to find somewhere to give them away.

 

Coon Tail has had her litter.

I haven't seen Mystic.

I gave Bane a bath. He didn't behave too badly at all. I felt sorry for him walking around with all that oil on his fur. He was getting depressed. I'm still going to have to cut a couple of mats on one side and lots of poop mats of his back side.

 

I remember when I had Buddy with these bad mats. He was such a gentleman and always sweet. After I would brush him as much as both of us could handle, I would take the smallest, sharpest scissors I could find and just gently start cutting at the outside of the mats. Sometimes they would be so bad I would have to start sort of close to the skin but still as far away from the skin as I could...the very base of the mat.

I feel for you with Bane's mats. He must be a very good boy or he wouldn't have been able to handle getting a bath. The only cat I've ever had that "handled" getting a bath was little sweet Cream Puff that (now I know) had this disease/condition called "wobbler". Because of her inability to fight me is the main reason I'm sure I was able to wash her. Before her little life was over I bathed her lots of times as well as wiped/kept her pooh area clean.

I've seen this diagnosed "wobbler condition" on the internet. She not only wobbled (her head) but the older she got the more problem she had getting around. She just couldn't stand, or even with assistance remain standing. She had a strange, lurching kind of walk but she wasn't able to do that after a time...her legs wouldn't bend. I had to have her put to sleep, and she had a good temperament until the very end.

 

Bane bites me when I cut his mats out. I try to get him really stoned on catnip first.

Mystic must have had her kittens under the front porch again. Somebody is under there with kittens.

 

Last night and then today Tips has been acting sick. He was looking really good...looking even better than he looked in that picture I've posted. As soon as I said he didn't look as good as that pic, I remember thinking "shit I don't know what I was thinking - he looks great!!!"

It only takes a day or 2 for them to look pitiful bad. lordhavemercy

I don't know how you do it, Aeri.

Princess is fine, prancing around one minute and then acting odd the next. I thought her stomach seemed a bit wider. So, I guess she is still pregnant. God/dess knows...I SURE DON'T.

Sometimes I wonder if there is something here, outside, that is making the toms sick. That doesn't make sense does it...something that would make the toms sick?

 

Maybe it's that crystals in the urine thing. I think maybe males are more prone to that.

 

Tips is doing some better but he still isn't well. I just couldn't stand it and have made an appointment with the vet for tomorrow at 2pm. He'll get a rabies shot, and I am determined they will NOT talk me into expensive testing and what not, which even as I type this I am sure they will try to do.

I want them to maybe give him an antibiotic and if there is something they can tell by LOOKING at him, then fine. I am NOT going to have him spending the night there. The last time I had a cat spend the night there at the vet, it wound up being an absolutely ridiculous sum of money AND she died less than 10 hours after coming home.

I care a lot for Tips and I want him to get well...but damn if I'm breaking the bank on him. I have Princess (with babies) I still have to consider.

I wonder if those people at the vets will be capable of understanding my very plain English/speaking. For some reason, it seems vets sometimes just can't understand what they are being told about animals, especially those that are outside animals and that have just taken up residence.

edit: of course by "animals" up there, I meant specifically cats. Either these here expect you to spend nothing or the world. Where the hell is the middle line in things anymore...I need to remind myself of that

 

Lynn, I know exactly what you mean. You just tell them upfront that he's a stray that you cannot put alot of money into.

 

I called there around 10 and cancelled the appointment. I told them I couldn't find him, so he must not have been as sick as I thought.

TRUTH is: When Mama opened the door this morning he immediately went outside, and I couldn't find him for a little while. (I eventually located him in the back yard...he had found a neat little place in the sun.)

I've been able to get him to eat, and he is eating more than he was when this started overnight. Honestly, I think he was either bitten by something or he ate something (wild) that about did him in.

Either way, from yesterday to this morning when I decided to call and cancel I was greatly questioning if they could do anything for him anyway. Rather if they would do what I wanted, which was to simply give him an antibiotic shot. Them checking him out and ONLY giving him a rabies shot would have cost around $100. I have CareCredit, but as I already said - I know I'll be using that with Princess (getting her fixed).

I still need to get him a rabies shot. At the traveling vet a rabies shot costs a whole $7. Thankfully Tips really doesn't ever leave the back yard and since I close the porch door at dark, he hasn't come in contact with anything that would give him rabies.

I'm going to keep feeding him special food, etc.

The thing about cats and vets is how you always question yourself.

If I hadn't taken Missy to the vet, I'm sure I would have eventually wondered if I should have taken her there. When I took her, she had been acting a little bit disoriented/odd but she could walk with no problem and death did NOT seem like it would be coming soon. Then several days later, when I INSISTED I WOULD take her home, she couldn't even walk and she was gone 10 hours and $600 later.

The single only cat that the vets ever truly helped (and I've taken a number of them through the years) was Monkey; but she died early (I had her put to sleep) because of feline leukemia. With all of the knowledge and medicine they can't come up with anything to really help a cat that has feline leukemia. I think feline leukemia could/should be compared to cat HIV.

 

Go with your gut, Lynn. You've got the gift of intuition.

I've had several cats that were sick that way. Once or twice we actually saw the swelling where they were bitten. They rode it out for a couple of days, maybe used up one of their nine lives, and recovered. We've used an amber chip necklace laying next to them, with good results. It is said to draw out sickness. Cats are probably more in tune with crystals than we are anyway.

We had one young male found dead in the back yard with no obvious signs of trauma. I think he might have been bitten by something deadly.

 

Would you guys mind if I tell a story here about my 1st cat? I was 29.

 

Joel, please do tell us!

 

Thanks Aeri------

When I was growing up, my best friend Richard had 3 or 4 cats in his house, which I went to every day. Never touched one, never even looked at them much. I knew that they were there , but just didn't care for or about cats at all. IN fact I don't think I ever touched one until I was 29 and living on Maui. 1969, it was. Lived with a couple of girls from Sacramento
as room mates--they had a couple of big dogs that were there too. It was up in the mountains by a town called Kula. One day I was being given a ride home from La Haina by a friend and as we were driving along, I saw a little bundle of fur right in the middle of the road trying to dodge traffic, which was considerable. Well, any animal in trouble--I'm there if I can be. I hollered to stop the car and I jumped out and got in the middle of the road to stop the traffic. (to the tune of car horns.) He was a little striped male --still small, but weaned for sure. The poor little guy had been hit and one eye was hanging out of the socket, but otherwise he seemed OK.

I took him to a vet and the vet took his eye on out and sewed him up. Vet said he looked healthy, so we proceded on up to my place. The little guy followed me into the house and was immediately set upon by the dogs. That little sucker stood his ground and hit em' with his claws and I was proud as could be. I charged at the dogs before he got 'em, but turns out he was very brave. They did not bother him again.

I really enjoyed him and wondered what I'd been missing all those years by not befriending cats.

The interesting part and the sad part coming.

I needed some work , so I called over to Honolulu and was told to come on over--plenty of work. So I flew over and the first day when I was sitting on a roof nailing wood roofing----I got the weirdest feeling. I literally threw my hatchet down and said to the guy working with me--"something happened to my cat! I left and went to a phone and called over to Maui and one of the girls answered. When she heard my voice , she started crying and said she went out, stared the car and began to back out--my kitty got frightened and hid behind the wheel of the car with expected results. A sad , sad day for me. The little bugger didn't even get a chance to grow up.

But meeting that little guy was the beginning of my love for cats. Since that time, I have had many kitty and cat friends and have gotten homes for dozens. That little bit of ESP was one of only two instances in my life experiencing ESP. That's the story---and I'll never forget that little guy.----------------Joel

 

I forgot to say that I named him Peeper because of the one eye.