Tails of a CC Foster Momma ~ March 24th, 2016

Hello loyal Cat Corner-ians! 

I'm a foster Momma for the cat corner and I thought it may be fun and possibly educational to take you through how fostering works down in the trenches.  It can be a dirty business (lots of litter), but is very rewarding. You also learn all sorts of weird facts that could really help you win at trivia contests!!

I'll be updating you on our foster family every Thursday on our growing pains, triumphs, and struggles!  Without further ado, let's meet our family:

This family of six started out as a single gray tabby female who was picked up on the streets of Newport News on 3/12/2016 low and behold this single female was packing...5 babies to be precise and they joined the world on 3/14/2016 at the Peninsula Regional Animal Shelter; all healthy babies!  On 3/16/2016 a single baby kitten was found out in the cold and was warmed and attempted to be introduced to the family!  It was simply meant to be, cause the bonus baby was scooped right up by Mom Cat as one of her own!

According to shelter reps as well as anyone who attempts to pet Mom cat...she's not super cuddly...at all!  While we aren't sure if she is semi feral or a stray on hard times, she makes her dislike of people known.  I picked up the family on 3/18/2016 and my job is to try my best to get these kittens to be adoptable well adjusted kitty citizens and assess Mom Cat to see if she is semi feral or a stray and see if we can do any behavior modification to get her adoptable too!

So this is how our first week went....

In order to figure out which kitten is which I had to color code them.  They are so little the only thing I could use as a collar is hair ties; however, the hair ties are still huge on the kittens and end up around bellies and legs.  For now that's ok cause all they really do is nap and eat; but as they become more mobile it could restrict their movement so either the kittens get bigger or I have to get smarter.

We already have a biggest kitten it is the red banded kitten it is very chunky compared to the others.  We have a tiny kitten too the pink kitten who is a little girl.  Unfortunately with only a week under our belts we thought it best due to pink kitten being so dramatically smaller and not gaining weight as much as the others to go to a home with a single kitten being bottle fed so that kitten could have a sibling and so pink kitten could have some one on one TLC.  In situations with more domesticated Mom cats this type of situation can be more controlled in a home environment and we may not have had to move pink kitten to another foster, but with Mom Cats anti people behavior we could not monitor pink kitties eating and move her directly to the milk bar and remove the bigger kittens from her way safely.

So we are now a family of five again!  Everyone is doing amazing!  Mom while disliking me touching babies and weighing them everyday has stopped pooping on the floor and learned or relearned to use a litter box.  It only took her about a day to figure it out.  Instead of cleaning up her accidents entirely I picked up her accident and put it in the box than moved the litter box directly over the location she went on the floor.  She smelled her own potty time and figured it out very fast!  I've used this tactic before when litter training animals of all ages never underestimate smell; sometimes dirty is better!

As for kitten development almost everyone's eyes are open now except for our kitten who was adopted into the family; he is a little behind just a day or so.  Hopefully his eyes will be open soon!   Can't wait to see what this next week brings!  If there are specific areas you want me to talk about let me know!

For daily picture updates and video you can always check out Cat Corner Foster Momma (It's a page on facebook)