4 weeks & 4 days old

The kittens are delightful. It is funny to watch them develop motor skills, and behavioural patterns for learning in their limited environment.

The little black kitten was less than 48 hours old when I saw him making the motions of eyes and face that indicated he was having a dream.
I wondered what he had experienced with so little contact with the world that would make him dream. It didn’t seem like a good dream, so perhaps he was just frustrated that he couldn’t see and he was no longer in such a nice, warm, seemingly safe place as he had become a living being in.

Silky is not the best mother cat I have ever known. She is very young herself. Apparently she had 2 kittens before and “lost” them. By the way the person who let Silky out to roam, and she roamed to my house and moved in, “lost” can mean neglect and a human without the common sense to help her.

I have seen kittens come on heat when they were only 3 months old, serious heat. Animals are animals and physiology may differ between species, but the patterns are the same. The more inbred the earlier the heat. I am not certain that Silky is inbred, but I doubt she is even a year old.

This past week Silky and Perla have been driving me crazy!!! Their cries, talking(?), are in the same frequency range as human babies crying it seems. The things I have heard men complain chronically about when their partner has had a baby seem to be so with Silky. She is so hormonal, and vocal about it!!! I have ended up pleading and raising my voice trying to get them to stop!! I think I have a bit of an understanding of why mothers have been known to shake their children to death, or the one that threw her baby over Niagara Falls years ago. She said it was an accident, but where she was standing for the baby to “accidentally” fall out of her arms was quite tricky, and dangerous, to get to. Perhaps in the country she came from it was easier to be believed.

The kittens make me laugh, pure joy. I step into the room and they immediately scramble to see me. I am a mobile cat tree these days, they climb on me.
It’s only been a few days since they were taking tentative steps and I was joking with Dani that they were drunk. They were self propelling from birth, using their tiny legs, but not something one could call walking. Then they started to get their “sea legs” and wobbled and worked at balancing themselves. Now they wander around the room and try to find something interesting.

I want to keep the environment the kittens are in as clean as possible. Like babies, the more germs they are exposed to while their young mothers (like Silky) take them everywhere to show them off the more likely their immune system will be weakened. Silky tries to get them outside, but I have the thumbs and control of opening the door. No babies are going outside.

I have put some new chenille strips in the kitten room, and a few other things that are relatively ‘clean’ in an outside germs sense. They have one another to play fight with and they do that more and more as they have better motor skills. They run to me now, not wobble. They are the sweetest little beings.

Silky is not as interested in the babies as her boyfriend outside. He calls from morning to night and that is why she wants to take babies outside. She thinks he will be interested, but he is not. I have held one of the babies at a time and taken it to the door to see if the boyfriend is interested. He has looked, no interest, went for Silky’s bum. Just like other species. 😂

K & D will take the little black guy. He will have a wonderful life of food, love, inside safety … I wish I could be sure the other little ones will have the same, but not all humans have a developed sense of responsibility toward others. I try not to think that far ahead. It’s not under my control. I can only do the best I can with the resources I have at present to give them a good start in life. No wonder people pray, whether or not they believe in something more powerful than their own species.

Yesterday the tiny first born, petite like Silky and even the same deformed congenital bone in the tail, was just curled up and not moving. I feared the worst, but then I pet her and she started to move. Several times yesterday I held Silky, firmly, to allow the little one to eat. She rallied by evening. That’s why I say Silky is not the best mother, still a big kitten herself.
Apparently this behaviour is not unusual here and people take kittens from the mother as early as 4 weeks. I thought 6 weeks was ridiculous and I was delighted to find that generations of street cats (no human interference) in Spain normally keep their kittens fed, and protected for about 12 weeks. The Spanish people I met thought that was “normal”. I like that norm.

I told the neighbour who came to say Silky is her cat that I will keep the kittens until they are at least 8 weeks old. She had just adopted two MORE kittens that day, bringing the total to 5 cats + Silky if she returns. Not hard to see why Silky moved in here, and not surprisingly the neighbour has not returned.
Not surprisingly when the neighbour came to my door and I invited her and her female friend inside Silky ignored them. Silky likes people, but when this woman tried to pick up Silky she ran and even hissed. I am sure the woman gave her a lot of love, she is good natured and loving, but …
I would like to have Silky sterilized and find her a home with fewer cats. Who am I kidding? I WILL have Silky neutered and try to find her a better home.

I doubt the neighbour will show up at my door again. The second time she mentioned she had just adopted 2 more kittens that day and now has 5 … Her face changed and her body language altered and I almost laughed. She doesn’t want another cat. Like so many people she likes to play with baby animals.
Poor babies.

Silky’s first born would have been “lost” had she not come here when it was time to deliver her babies. She had no real nesting sense and when she tried to have the kittens on my bed the last contraction was so strong she screamed, jumped off the bed and ran. I took chase, but too slow of course. Taking a few steps back into my bedroom I almost stepped on … something. It only took a split second to realize it was a kitten in an unbroken sack. I grabbed a clean cloth and wiped the sack away from the baby’s face and cleaned her up as much as possible.
Silky had no interest in the first kitten. I kept trying to get her interested while I was making a nesting box, and turning on a space heater in an appropriate storage closet, cleaning out anything that might be a danger, running back to try to get Silky interested in the newborn kitten. Kitten 2 was less painful and Silky started to behave like a mother cat. She was quite a good little mother the first 4 weeks, but the first born is having to learn to not go off on her own, and I help her get enough to eat. The other 3 kittens play and cuddle all the time, sometimes I have to bring the tiny one into the cuddle of kittens.
The first kitten is not a “runt” as much as she is tiny, and she will stay tiny like her mother. The white and gold/orange/red kittens have lovely round bellies. The black kitten eats the most, but he more slender and the one with the greatest curiosity of the litter.

It is quiet for a while now. The morning frazzle of cat cries and trying to get Silky to override her hormones has settled down. I won’t go and visit the kittens, because that activates Silky’s … hormonal behaviour??? Whatever. Quiet is good and I will enjoy it. I can visit the kittens later. I have to get out for cat food today, so I will buy some toys that seem safe for kittens to play with. They need the stimulation to keep developing their young brains.

I love cats.