I put the queen in with the kittens after letting her out of the trap. I decided to give her the benefit of the doubt as the kittens crawled toward her belly. It was approaching the midnight hour, so I then tried to lay down and just listen in the quiet. I was worried she would harm them. She is so scared and out of her element. I don’t even think mom is eight months old. I didn’t hear any signs of distress, so I drifted off.

I woke up a few hours later to the sounds of kittens in distress. I scrambled out of bed and ran over to the cage. She was sitting on both of the babies and growling. The little orange one was trapped under her. I tried to reach in to save them- bad mistake, she launched herself at me and I had to slam the cage door closed. At least I got her off her kittens.

When I looked in again, she was sitting in the litter pan waiting for my next move. Her kittens didn’t look right. They were just lying on the small blanket not moving much. I cracked the door and grabbed Mike’s grabber. I slid that through the crack and grabbed the edge of the blanket and pulled it toward me.

Mom watched and growled, snarled and hissed, but didn’t try to protect her kittens or further harm them. I quickly slid the kittens out of the cage and put them into a separate carrier. I checked them, they were warm and breathing. Before I did anything else, I warmed up the formula and fed them. They both drank greedily, confirming my worse fear- she wasn’t nurturing them at all. I weighed the babies, they weigh 3 ozs each so they are about 3 days old.

So now, I have a scared, pissed off aggressive mom in our homemade wooden cage. I don’t think she would go into another trap-so I have to figure out how to get her recaptured into a small carrier and just go and get her spayed ASAP

When I saw her at the farm house behind a couch on their patio in a shoebox she was so scared, just trembling. She’d already lost half of her litter, how they died is anyone’s guess- but I do know that she just isn’t mom material. If I can capture her and get her spayed that will tone down the aggression quite a bit.

Dang, I wasn’t going to do this anymore guys. Mike needs me now more than ever. He will be home on Monday! I don’t know what possessed me to tell the gentleman who called me for help that I would take on yet more cats. He was just an nice, elderly man who wanted some help and no one would help him until he called me.

CATS Inc. has yet another vet debt to pay off- thanks to two euthanizations from the outdoor colony, the cost of a testing the brain of the poor kitten who bit me. It’s just a never-ending battle trying to find funding to pay for all of this and it is a battle I didn’t want anymore.

I look at this gorgeous calico girl and my heart breaks for her. But I know based on her actions that if given the opportunity- she would tear me up one side and down another. Did she kill her other kittens? I don’t know, but I am not going to give her the benefit of the doubt any more. It’s bottle feeding the remaining two survivors every two/three hours and praying they aren’t going to fade on us anytime soon.

So the coffee is going and I hear Marbles and Cooper the two babies crying- time to get back to work. Mike may need me, but these cats need me more.