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Aack!! Help! 2010

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delalluvia:
As some of you know, I was laid off last summer then when my apartment lease was up, I moved in with my mother in her house back in January to help her out.

Well, my mother had given me her car, since I was still driving my beat up, ancient convertible with the torn top and 232,000 miles on it.  So now I have 2 cars.  I've been driving the newer one primarily, leaving my old convertible in the back of the driveway, and driving it rarely and/or just starting it to keep the battery charged up.

Today, I realized it's been almost 10 days since I last started my old car.  Ten minutes ago I went to the car, started to open the door and realized one of the local street cats had just had her kittens on the front passenger side floorboard.

 :o :o :o :o :P >:(  :P

*sigh*

First a dove, now a cat (see my thread "Aack!!  Help!  2009" for the dove story).

While I was standing there gaping, going "No, no, no, no..." The mother spooked and ran off.

I went inside to call the vet and the assistant assured me that the mother would be back and would likely move the kittens (they're just newborn - eyes are still closed.  They need their mother).

But there's no way for me to tell unless I disturb them again to look - and I don't want dead little kittens in my car if the mother abandoned them because I kept disturbing them - but the vet assistant said no, I hadn't disturbed them at all since she had had them and likely knew the car was a nice quiet protected space.  So it's very likely she'll be back and cats are very protective mothers.

Good news - she might move them, but I won't be able to tell.

Bad news - if she doesn't move them, then she'll be there nursing them for 5 weeks!!!!

My car will be dead by then!!!  The backyard overgrown!!!  I can't move the car so the lawn guy can get back there to mow!!!  I'll be fined by the city and

AACK!!!

Damned cats...grumble grumble grumble
 

louisev:
Since she's a stray cat you could take the kittens and nurse them till you can find a shelter to adopt them - newborns are ready to adopt at 6 weeks and shelters find them easy to place.  If you don't do this, they will grow up feral, starving, and perpetuate the cycle of starving stray cats in our world.  I had a feral stray creep in through the cat door and have her kittens under my bed.  I kept two of them, nursing them from newborn, and adopted out the other four.  I still have those two cats, Kate and Fred, featured in my flickr site, and the others grew up to be gorgeous half-angora, half-tabby mixes, non-feral, with a healthy domestic kitty life.

delalluvia:

--- Quote from: louisev on May 18, 2010, 07:24:18 pm ---
Since she's a stray cat you could take the kittens and nurse them till you can find a shelter to adopt them - newborns are ready to adopt at 6 weeks and shelters find them easy to place.  If you don't do this, they will grow up feral, starving, and perpetuate the cycle of starving stray cats in our world.  I had a feral stray creep in through the cat door and have her kittens under my bed.  I kept two of them, nursing them from newborn, and adopted out the other four.  I still have those two cats, Kate and Fred, featured in my flickr site, and the others grew up to be gorgeous half-angora, half-tabby mixes, non-feral, with a healthy domestic kitty life.

--- End quote ---

Trouble with that - and I was thinking about the getting her spayed issue - that young of kittens have to be kept warm, quiet and fed around the clock.  And I'd have to hope the feral kitties didn't inherit some fatal disease from their mother they could pass on to my own cats (I don't let my own cats outside for that reason).

I'm in the middle of having a garage sale for my mother's furniture, having relatives and strangers tromping into my house and front yard, having the movers bringing my furniture and termite exterminators coming, and boxing things up for Goodwill AND taking care of my own two cats AND going to work.  No idea when I'd have time to nurse the kitties round the clock and kept them undisturbed and away from my own cats.

Fran:
Can you call the Humane Society or Animal Care & Control?  Or maybe some cat no-kill shelter?  Hopefully, there's some local animal rescue organization that has the resources to save these kittens from the feral life that awaits them.

Your post got me thinking:  how did the mom cat get inside your car?  One of my fears is that a mouse or, even worse, a rat will find its way into my car someday.

Jeff Wrangler:

--- Quote from: Fran on May 19, 2010, 09:27:25 am ---Your post got me thinking:  how did the mom cat get inside your car?  One of my fears is that a mouse or, even worse, a rat will find its way into my car someday.

--- End quote ---

I wondered about that, too, until I went back and re-read the first post, where she mentions that the car is a convertible. I'm guessing the top was "down."

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