The Continuing Kitty Story

Our adventure continues with the four feral kittens.  Last week we decided to trap them so they could go to the vet to be spay/neutered.  One night we put a trap out with tuna, and watched as the first kitten went into the trap.  We brought the kitten in and put the trap back out.  Soon we had a second one.  We kept them in a crate overnight and in the morning we set out the trap again.  We had the other two trapped before long.  We put all four in the crate together.

We decided to try to catch the mother cat, who we suspected was in heat again.  There have been two tomcats hanging around so we thought she was attracting them.  We put the trap out again and the mother cat went in!

I took the four kittens to the vet and my husband took the mother to a spay/neuter clinic in Cincinnati.  We were planning to return her to the wild since she that was all she had known, while we thought the kittens might be adoptable.  I watched as the vet checked out the kittens… one female and three males.
I left them there for their surgery.  We were planning to go away for the weekend so we couldn't take them home after the surgery.  We arranged with the vet to board them until we returned home.

I was on my way home from the vet's office when I got a call from my husband.  "Guess what?"  he said.  The cat we thought was the mother turned out to be a male!  I was surprised because that cat had been taking care of the kittens ever since they came to us.  They slept together and always came to eat together and they played all over him.  We brought him home and released him back outside.

Then we went to the airport and flew out of town, leaving the four kittens with the vet.  While we were away, I received a call from a young woman who works in the vet's office.  She told me the three males had been neutered and she wanted to know if she could take them home and try to socialize them.  It turns out she does this with kittens quite often, then finds homes for them.  I said it would be fine.  So the three males spent the weekend at her house while the female kitten stayed at the vet's.

We came home on Monday and I made arrangements to retrieve the kittens the next day.  I went to the cat sitter's house and she showed me the progress she had made with them, holding and petting them.  I brought two of them home to see what would happen if we introduced them to our existing pet cats.  I left one kitten with her as she said it was still pretty shy.  I picked up the little female at the vet's office and brought her home.  She was still pretty wild so we released her outside.  We have seen her since, living in one of our shelters and coming out to feed.  She seems to be doing fine.

Now we have the two male kittens at our house, trying to acclimate them to our surroundings.  We have been able to hold them and they purr.  We might give one back to the cat sitter lady because her husband fell in love with it over the weekend.

Here are the kittens at the pet sitter's house.

The pet sitter holding the little gray kitten.

The kittens at our house today.