I've made a casual attempt at trapping the newer cats in the area. They are not consistent enough for easy trapping and for now, I don't have time available to commit to them. Sasha appears to have had her kittens. She comes to feed after the other cats have had their fill and she likes to keep at least twenty yards away from me.
I wrote this on April 20th to post elsewhere. I believe that it provides the date of when the kittens were born:
Two days of torrential rain flooding the streams and rivers into the low areas. Looking out the window from the breakfast table I see a cat walking up the street; slow, but purposeful. The stride of the hind legs looks wrong. It's not limping, but the movement is stiff, perhaps pained. It is walking away from the area where I put food for the 'street cats'. There was no food this morning. It would spoil in the heavy rain.
Sasha? The coat is mostly white with a saddle-shaped gray with black stripes across the back. As she turns, I see the streak of white fur on her back. It's offset to her right, dividing the saddle. Sasha. I saw her two days ago and she looked very pregnant. Her belly is no longer swollen with kittens. I open the door for a better view. She glances toward me without changing her pace, turns from the road and vanishes behind a fence.
I'll watch for her and leave sheltered food where she can reach it. A wild animal, she has never been anyone's pet. In the weeks ahead, I'll watch for the kittens. If I find waiting homes for them, I will trap them when they are about eight weeks and give them away. More likely, about half of them will survive to adulthood and join the 16 or so feral cats that I tend to.
I have trapped, spayed and neutered over twenty local cats. Sasha is the only one of the group that I have been unable to capture. She vanished last year and only recently returned. I wish her well and hope to trap and spay her before she has kittens again.
I saw a Siamese cat with a blue collar scouting along the curb and into Ronnie's garden a few days ago. I expect that it has a home in the neighborhood and was just exploring. Never saw it before, but I'll be watching to see if it comes back and appears to now be stray.
Comments
Post a Comment