Update!

It's been a while since my last update and a lot has happened since so I thought I'd let you all know what's been happening!

We've now caught both the mum and dad aswell as the kittens which is great news. We only caught the Dad on Tuesday night, but we caught mum a few nights before. They have both gone to a sanctuary in North Wales and will be rehomed together which is nice :)

The kittens are coming on fantastically.. Jack, who was the feisty temperemental one now loves nothing more than a good stroke. He purrs away and pushes his head against your hand and likes to roll onto his back so you can stroke his belly! We've not yet taken him out of the cage though as before we stroked him, when we tried to take him out to clean the cage he went nuts and was screaming and stuff so I don't know how he's going to react if we do it again. He doesn't seem to mind being scruffed too much but I don't think he'll be like Ruby who's still very timid and just goes asleep on your knee. He seems to want to play and interact more, but I'm worried he'll be out of his comfort zone if we take him out of the cage and go mad again.

We'll have to take him out soon though, it'll probably be this weekend when we've got lots of time in case he DOES run off! Maybe he'll be different this time though and snuggle up like Ruby does, guess we'll just have to see!

We put Ruby on the floor for the first time on Sunday - that was an interesting experience!

She was fine, she enjoyed being able to wander about freely and was jumping from chair to chair and playing with her toys. The only thing is, until you're actually holding her, she doesn't like being stroked or anything so getting her back in the cage was a bit of a struggle! We were trying to lure her towards us with food, which seemed to be working but the second she got too close she bolted and hid under the sofa. I tried scruffing her and she hissed at me and got free so then she wouldn't budge from behind the sofa for ages!

Eventually, we managed to get her as she'd climbed on top of their cage.

One thing we're learning at the moment is that it's important to re-assure them if they're scared otherwise they'll just continue to associate us as something to be scared of. Ruby didn't like being caught, but once I'd sat down with her she soon snuggled up and went to sleep again. Similarly, when we're putting food in for them, we make sure we give them a little stroke to show them there's nothing to fear.

It's a great experience though, really rewarding :) Hopefully it'll only be a few more weeks before they're running about freely!

They're getting very clever though, when we open their cage to stroke them, they seem to be learning that its an exit and eyeing it constantly so we'll have to be really careful!

Their personalities are starting to come through aswell now. Ruby is mental - she chases her toys around the cage whether we're playing with them or not. We'll be sat in the bedroom and hear her darting about the cage chasing one of the little balls with the bells in the middle. Jack, on the other hand seems quite laid-back, he just likes to watch her and occasionally join in batting his paw around. They've started play fighting too. Ruby chases Jack's tail, and sometimes her own. She seemed really confused the other day when they were playing together. She noticed Jack's ears and was trying to pat them down so they were flat against his head and looked surprised when they popped back up when she moved her paw away haha. Poor Jack just lay there while she did it, so he's quite tolerable!

Okay, that's enough waffling for now, I'm turning into crazy cat lady!

xxx

Ups & Downs..

Good afternoon folks,

Last night was a bit of a stressful night compared to Sunday. Ruby was very unsettled and cried constantly from about 2am-5am and it was frantically trying to get out of the cage. Nothing we did seemed to be stopping it from crying either :( We tried leaving it for a while to see if she'd calm - still mewing, I went in and sat on the sofa - still mewing, tried spoonfeeding it - it hissed at me, tried playing with its toys - hissed again!

Eventually, after I'd been lying on the floor right next to its cage, it started to go asleep so I came back to bed. It carried on mewing for a little bit, but quietly and eventually stopped and we managed to get a little bit of sleep.

This morning it's been mewing still, but seems a lot more confident, it's not cowering at the back of the cage but rather climbing around it - obviously still looking for a way out!

It's been spoon-feeding though, and it even took some food from Jon's finger. I had a little nap and when I woke up, Jon told me he'd managed to put his hand in and give her a bit of a stroke although it took a long while.

So yeah, it's been a bit up and down since last night, but we're still determined!

If anyone has any advice on the crying/mewing thing and how we should tackle it, it would be greatly welcomed!

*falls over*

Names again!

So we've decided on a name..

RUBY!

We realise this isn't really a gender neutral name but I suppose if we find out that it's a boy it could be Rubi? Who knows, we just like it and thinks it suits the name!

Joy came with the traps, so we've set them up in the yard so that they won't close on the cat and kitten if they go in for food. Just to get them used to it.

We're still concerned we haven't seen kitten II since Saturday :( Hopefully it's about somewhere though, perhaps it's staying away as the mum saw Kitten I in the cage and maybe thinks it's dangerous.

She's been back in for food a couple of times and not looked too phased, but this morning Ruby was mewing a lot and the window was open so Mum was looking around the garden :( I still feel terrible about taking her babies away from her but I suppose we just need to keep telling ourselves we're doing the right thing.

Joy thinks Ruby is DEFINITELY under 8 weeks old, more like 6-7 weeks which is fantastic news as it means s/he should be fairly easy to tame. The fact that s/he is already spoon feeding after just one night is a great sign!

Fortunately, when Joy was here she managed to see the Mum as when we were in the yard with the traps, she was poking her nose under the gate. We put some food out and she soon wandered in so she got a good look at her and thinks that she does look a bit wide and therefore might be carrying another litter.

Our main priority at the moment, other than little Ruby, is to try and re-establish a feeding routine with Mum and kitten II so keep your fingers crossed that we see it soon!

Progress!!

Hows this for progress?!?!

That's just after one day! I was expecting this to happen at least a fortnight away!

The morning after the night before

Morning everyone!

So last night went pretty well, all things considered. The kitten was pretty settled for most of the night, though it wouldn't go near the jumper/towel in the litter tray.

We left our bedroom door open so we could hear it and just before we went to be bed we heard it wandering about the cage and knocking the little ball toy with a little bell in it.

At 4.30am we were woken up because it was mewing a lot. We tried going 'shhhhhhhhhhh' quietly through the door, which worked at first but then it wouldn't stop. I got out of bed and went and got a little bit of chicken from the fridge to see if it would take it. It was very scared and hissed at me a little bit, but then I think it must have realised I was trying to offer it some food as it started sniffing the chicken and licking its lips. It didn't take any though so I just left it in the cage.

Got back in bed and it started mewing again, so we figured we'd try and treat it like a baby and let it cry for a while before it settled and it worked. We think it might have even tried to get out of the cage again because I heard the bars clanging a bit, but it did eventually quieten down.

I've just gone in and peeked in the cage, and the chicken has gone and it's lay on the jumper looking around. It's managed to tuck itself inside it so just its head is poking out. Looks adorable :)

I'm glad it started sniffing the food I was giving it, I'm seeing that as progress!

Today, we're going to focus on trying to get it to eat from a spoon, then our hand. We're also going to just in the room and read or something so that it can see us but without staring at it or anything so that hopefully it'll see we aren't a threat to it.

Joy will be here soon with the trap for the other one!

Eep!

One down, one to go..

Well, we've caught one.

We put the cage outside with food in it, the mum and kitten wandered in. I went into the garden and the mum ran away so we just closed the cage door. The poor thing understandably went a bit nuts at first and was clawing at the cage to get out. It's calmed down a lot now, it even fell asleep before!

We're going to have to figure out a way to make the cage ultra secure so there's no chance of it escaping.

We're also going to have to try and clean the tray too! We took everything out of it to put it outside and just put a plate of mashed up pilchards in it. When the kitten went nuts, the pilchards went all over the place and it remains that way now!

We did manage to remove the dirty plate and put its proper food bowl in with some fresh food and water. We've also put in a snuggly jumper for it to lie on if it chooses to.

Tomorrow, Joy is coming first thing with the trap so we can try and catch the other.

Eep, it's all happening!!

If anybody has any helpful advice, it would be most welcome!

ON HOLD

Well.. the lady who was bringing the trap for us to catch them in tonight has just called to tell me she's coming tomorrow instead.

Not too much of a difference, but we're supposed to be in work on Tuesday so if we do catch them tomorrow, we're not going to have much time with them before we have to go to work the next day :(

Blahhhhhhh!

Names

This may be a bit premature as we haven't even GOT the kittens yet, and we've no idea of the sex, but we've been trying to think of names.

At first, I really liked Star, or Starla depending on the sex. Now I really like Satsuki and Mei (brownie points if you know where I got those from.) Obviously, their gender would determine the suitability of these names and I don't think Jon is that keen.

He came up with Isobel, which I like. His inspiration came from Roswell. Yup.

So if anyone has any suggestions, the more gender neutral, the better (until we know the sex) GIVE!

Mel xxx

p.s. The picture is their cage they'll be staying in til we can tame them a little. It was almost brown with rust when we got it, but we've managed to clean it up nicely. It's still a little bit rusty, but I don't think this will pose a threat to the kittens. Doesn't it look cosy??

All Ready!

Hello there,

My name is Mel and tomorrow I am borrowing a cage to trap two feral kittens which, with the help of my trusty sidekick (or boyfriend) Jon, we are going to try and tame!

Since we moved into our flat in November, a young feral cat has been wandering into our garden every now and then in search of food.

Last Thursday, she came in as usual but this time she was followed by two adorable little kittens.

We have been putting out food every day since, and we were going to have them rescued and taken away to be rehomed, but each day we've grown more and more attached to them so we want to keep them for ourselves! Unfortunately, the mum is no longer able to be tamed as she is too old and therefore too feral.

We are hoping to trap her after the kittens and take her to a rescue centre as we believe she may be pregnant again, so she needs looking over and possibly rehomed at a safer environment where she can remain feral but be fed properly etc.

I've never owned a cat before, other than when I was a young child, so we're really looking forward to the prospect of taming two ferals.

We know it's going to be very hard work as we don't know how old they are. From speaking to people and showing them pictures we've decided they're around 8-10 weeks old and we've read that if feral kittens are between 6-8 weeks old, they're tameable (that's a word, right?) but anything above 12-16 weeks is verging on the impossible. This has been widely disputed though, and I've heard about kittens being tamed at 5 months!

So, wish us luck tomorrow and I will update you when they've been caught!