Chronicles of the Xmas Kittens – Journal Entry 1

I know Christmas has long gone and we're over the wine, food, presents and carols, but the story I'm about to tell you started for me on Christmas Eve.

I had been cooking up big all day and during the evening I scooted away to take care of my dog and cat feeding chores. I live on a farm so everything is spread out. I walked to an outside room, located about 50 metres away from the house, which I use for meal preparation and as a feeding station for several of our cats, including the more bolder ferals who consider themselves part of the main coterie and hang around the tool shed and garage, but are still shy of being touched. Boots (a male we caught and desexed) is one, and Sweetie (a wise and street-smart older fertile female who we have NOT been able to catch – see photo) is the other. 

As I walked through the doorway I noticed Sweetie sitting in a long plastic tray under the window. Beside her was a lovely little white kitten with rust colour patches on its body. It took one look at me and then darted away in fright over the window sill onto the ground and then hid in a protruding drain pipe. 

I was equally startled because the last thing I expected to see on the farm at this time was a new kitten, as I monitored the females (and their bellies) closely and had not noticed that Sweetie was pregnant. Then again, she had recently been away for extended periods ...

The first thought in my head was "Oh no! The rest of the family are going to kill me!" They are patient with my feral socialisation activities but it seems as though the cats had been breeding more last year than any other year, even though the number of un-desexed females had not grown. I began speculating that perhaps the kitten didn't belong to Sweetie. Perhaps it was a stray and she had adopted it. Or maybe it was Sweetie's and I had missed the signs entirely!

The kitten stayed in the drain pipe and when I inspected it I noticed a little black one hiding in the interior. "Double oh no!" They backed down the pipe and disappeared into the shadows.

I let them be, and later on, returned to walk around the farm and look for their hiding place. I visited all the places Sweetie had traditionally had her litters but came up empty. She is notoriously inventive when it comes to hiding her babies, and exceptionally protective of them too. I have watched her divert the dogs and other male cats away from her nest and, if absent for an extended period, she would look around in all directions to make sure no animal or human was watching and then slink back via an obstacle course to make sure she wasn't being followed.

I found the litter on Christmas morning by accident. I came around the corner of a shed and spotted Sweetie on the concrete slab below a silo ... beside her were one, two three, four kittens who fled into a covered drain. Two blacks, one white and rust, and one pixie headed tortie and white. I left a little bit of food for them and returned that evening.

Sweetie had gone to the main feeding station so I had a few moments to observe them alone. They had obviously been taught to flee and hide while their mother wasn't around. They hid in two pipes inside and occasionally I could see little ears and eyes, noses and whiskers protruding to see if the threat (me) was still in their domain. A few minutes later I heard a gentle sound that was a mixture of a meow and a chirrup – mum's call to her babies. They all perked up and listened and then after I had backed away, poked their heads out to look for Sweetie who had returned from the feeding station with a large piece of cooked chicken in her mouth. She looked like a miniature version of a lioness. It was the same behaviour I had seen from the big cats in various nature documentaries. She dropped the meal down beside their hiding place and two of them emerged and ate ravenously – the two black ones, which I have since found out to be the boldest of the siblings.

I found out later from our next door neighbour that Sweetie had used his old caravan at the back of his chicken shed as their birthing place. When she had started weaning them, she obviously moved them to the drain area closer to the food source, yet still out of sight of our two dogs (who by the way are fascinated with cats and will not harm them).

The kittens are about seven weeks old now. I did not strategise or do anything about catching them until the new year, but I have laid the foundations slowly during the last few weeks. This case is different to the others because of the following reasons:

(1) For the first four weeks the kittens were not exposed to human contact in any shape or form from near or afar;

(2) They are located in an inhospitable area that is easy for them to hide in but exceptionally difficult for me to access;

(3) Psychologically they are more alert and smarter than any others I have encountered;

(4) Sweetie, their mum, rarely leaves their side.

The socialisation process will be tricky here. I have set the scene over the last few weeks by locking up the dogs when I am close by, and by sitting near the kittens while they eat and then gradually decreasing the distance from about 20 feet away to two feet away. I have also set a cat trap in a sheltered area close by with absolutely no success. I think the older cats trip it deliberately because the door is shut in the mornings when I return and none of the bait is taken. However, I have set out a cat cage with an open door near the drain so that they get used to it and relax. I want them to think it's just another non-threatening part of the environment. Over the last few days I have left a plate of food inside and have returned to find the contents gone. 

I have now set up a cat safe room in our outside gym. All the things are set – hidey places, warm spots, a feeding station, a toilet station, two full water bowls and a number of toys.

Wish me luck! Tonight I have to try and get Sweetie out of the way and then return to the drain to set down some food for them in the cat cage. If they are extra hungry they will go inside and all I have to do is close the door, which is the way I caught Boston (one of my other cats).

Fingers crossed. 

In the movies, if characters announce their plans to other characters (and thus the audience) something will inevitably happen to thwart the plan, so I am taking a big risk outlining my strategy in this blog journal entry. 

Wish me luck!

(By the way, I have been trying all day to upload pics of all these cats for you, but Blogger will not let me. I will try again tomorrow.)