Saturday 30 October 2010

Halloween kittens!

I call them kittens, but really they are young cats now, about 6 months old, and still the best of buddies, as you can see here where they are all snuggled up together in the porch on the defunct cushion from a garden chair. They are very playful. Tippy is totally tame and loves to be picked up and cuddled.

Jarvis, alias "Porky". He really is a stout rotund little cat with short legs and a broad beam! He loves to have his tummy tickled. He's not very keen at being picked up yet though.

This is Tippy - or Tippety-do-dah as I call him often. He is SO friendly and quite a character. He has a very loud voice and keeps telling us he isn't fed anything like ENOUGH food! I love the way his little white-tipped tail curls over at the top - he reminds me of the little lad Alfalfa in a childrens' film "Little Rascals" that my children always loved. It's his sticky-up tail with the tip falling over!



Alfie looking pensive.


Miffy is the mama feral cat. She will not tolerate people anywhere near her. We are going to have to borrow a trap to catch her for spaying as although I had hoped that leaving food in the big travelling box would tempt her in, she has other ideas. I thought I loved all cats, but she has other ideas about this and if she were to take herself off elsewhere, it would be a relief to me rather than an upset. She spits and hisses if you walk towards her, though you can actually get much closer (a couple of feet) compared with last Christmas when she arrived, and at the first sign of a person she would be in the farmyard and away. Sadly, she is blind in one eye.



Here are Tippy and Jarvis. Tippy has one eye which lights up slightly differently to the other and I think he may have had a scratch in it which has damaged it. You can't see any clouding or damage in daylight.


Ginger and white Alfie is growing in confidence, but still more timid than the other two, although he is happy to come into the house and even take Tippy's favourite seat inside the front door. He is quite happy to be stroked at length as long as there is food about! They all come inside the house now and have explored the kitchen and even upstairs, though this was when they were younger and more nervous and they soon panicked. Now they are starting to meet the older house cats, who think they are the lowest form of life and hiss and swear at them!

Tippy playing roly-poly in the hall . . .

And then resting on his favourite chair.

All three boys snuggled up together.



Little do they know that they are booked in to have their pockets picked next Tuesday . . . I will spend tomorrow morning cleaning out the lean-to utility room so that they can spend a few nights in there. They aren't allowed to eat from 6 p.m. the previous evening, so they need to be kept in so they don't go off hunting meeces in the paddock . . .

13 comments:

  1. These spotted cats are beautiful.

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  2. BB, your kitties are gourgous, they will get better with time. I have tamed ferals for many years and it just takes time.
    I have two black n whites very similiar. They are a feral brother and sister. Caught the sister last Feb to spay, took me a long time to do that in a trap as she knew what a trap was. I will try to catch the brother when I can. I have had these here about 4 years now. They live under my trailer and are great meece-catchers.
    I have seven of this sister's kittens, all tame and are wonderful housecats now.
    Take care BB
    Regards,

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  3. Ah yes, they must all make their trip to the vet.
    The ferals can be so impossible to catch--and in the meantime they keep presenting more kittens--more trips to vet, more bags of kibble, etc, how do we repeatedly fall for this?
    Our barn kittens are growing like the proverbial weeds--strangely they have been people lovers from the start.

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  4. Poor Miffy. Perhaps it was a human who put out her eye before she was able to make her way to you. Don't give up on her, we adopted a feral with a personality similar to Miffie's and she finally (took 4 years) came to love us. Her kittens are adorable!

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  5. They all look well loved and cared for and blessed to have found you! Poor Mama Cat...she probably has a good memory of something she endured in the past. Hopefully, she'll come round...

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  6. Victoria - it was our Lucy-cat who chased her off the premises and Miffy turned to stand her ground, and Lucy swiped her . . . I'm glad there's hope she may love us yet. She did actually touch ME this morning - I put my hand out, talking softly, and she dabbed me . . . It's a start.

    SH - I hope she will - she is definitely better than she was, but she wants life on HER terms.

    MM - oh gosh, how you've summed that up so succinctly!

    Denimflyz - you have plenty of experience with ferals too. there seem to be only too many in our neck of the woods - colonies living wild in the woods and then the most desperate go looking for somewhere better to live. Usually the young toms.

    Terra - the three boys are lovely and will replace Snowy and Honey, who sadly died in the past year, and Lucky, who is at the end of her life too, having been with us some 14 years now. She was completely wild too.

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  7. How lovely to get all these photos and updates on the kittens. "My" kitten alfie, is just divine, I'd love to pick him up and give him a squeeze.

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  8. Alfie was our "chosen one" to start with (we thought of trying to find homes for the other two, but they were 4 mths old before we could even stroke ONE of them (Tippy!) Now we are keeping all three . . .

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  9. I came back to enjoy the kittens again--my goodness, but they are absolute tanks--whatever are you feeding them??!!

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  10. What gorgeous glossy cats. I love your descriptions of all their personalities too. I love to see cats all snuggled up together like that. Lovely.

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  11. Oh gosh, these guys are just so gorgeous. Love them to bits :D

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  12. MM - the worst tank of all is Jarvis! He tells me every day he could eat a scabby horse between two mattresses!!! He also hunts for himself and Mama cat has been known to bring them rabbits . . .

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  13. Time flies...as it does in our house as kittens grow up and leave home. Tippy looks quite the charmer. And I have not been able to trap the tom round my house either...he is wise.

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