Calories burned wrestling kittens

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Replies

  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 34,458 Member
    *squee* Is this a new family member(s)?

    I used to do foster care for a local animal shelter...one or two kittens are fine. Six of the little rascals are a smelly, messy mess. :)
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 34,458 Member
    oh, jeebus. I read your dead Garmin post, too.

    They look to be almost old enough to move out (and get fixed - along with Pixie!!)

    I had a cat-mom like that when I was in my twenties. Unplanned kittens are not an ideal thing, for sure. We had to find homes for them and that was a task in itself. I hope you get them fixed soon.
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 34,458 Member
    Oh, that's nice that the whole family will be in the neighborhood. :)

    When I volunteered at PAWS, they would spay and neuter kittens at eight weeks or two pounds. Male or female.
  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,968 Member
    I've been waiting to ask the vet when we get the grand kittens fixed, thanks for taking that one off my list! I can't believe it happens when they're so young! It sounds like one of those movies where the parent goes back to school with their kid. 🙂

    Those kittens are the reason I'm not skiing today, and why I'm not riding or walking as much as I'd like. The neighbor and I have been working as a team on this.
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 34,458 Member
    edited March 2022
    I think some vets would rather it be at 4 Months, but they can get pregnant by that age if they are big enough and healthy.

    Granted, the shelter had to neuter before adopting them out, and the smaller the kittens the more likely to find homes quickly. There is about a week's recovery after the surgery for females. I'm guessing a couple of those are female by the tortoiseshell markings. So cute.

  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,968 Member
    Speaking of their markings ... we thought they were all inky black (except the tux) until this week when the sun finally came out in Seattle and revealed their tiger stripes! 😆 🤣 (☹️)

    The neighbor and I talked about requiring a $100 donation to a charity before we allowed anybody to adopt. We weren't really comfortable enforcing it. The idea, I'm sure you know this, is we only want them going to families that will be willing to spend what vet care and healthy cat food cost. It seemed like 7 kittens was a lot, we both fell in love with 2, and are only giving 3 out. We've been able to vet people carefully and know that they're going to homes that will prioritize them. So we're trusting adoptees to get them fixed.

    I'm getting a boy and a girl. I chose this apartment because it's a place cats can go outside and be safe. It's going to take a lot before they're allowed outside though, won't happen before they're fixed and microchipped. 🙂
  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,986 Member
    Awwww! <3 when I lived in the Middle East a feral cat decided to give birth in my garden, and I ended up with 6 tiny, very different-looking kittens. It was amazing to see mom teach them how to climb down high things (up was never a problem), hunt pigeons (she'd bring half-dead ones and then get angry at the kittens when they ignored the poor pigeon). One small one vanished quickly unfortunately. When they got old enough we caught four of them and had them castrated. The fifth one had already gone his own way, and mom had also mostly left. Couldn't find a home for them, and we left short after, but at least they couldn't reproduce even more.
  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,968 Member
    Pixie is going to the vet today, they're going to remove her ability to produce kitten.zip.
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 34,458 Member
    Yay! Go Pixie!
  • goal06082021
    goal06082021 Posts: 2,130 Member
    Sweet babies! I hope Pixie's surgery goes smoothly and she recovers quickly.

    I also used to work at an animal shelter and we would spay/neuter at 2 lbs as well. 4lbs is better - the margin for error is a lot thinner the smaller the animal is - but we ultimately wanted to minimize the amount of time the kittens had to spend in our care. It was a big, well-funded shelter, but even the biggest and best-funded shelter is still a stressful environment for a cat of any age, so the fewer days they spent with us, the fewer opportunities they had to get sick and have to stay even longer. We had a robust foster network that afforded us a little bit of time to let them grow some, especially in the "off" season, but during all-caps-defcon-1 KITTEN SEASON (April to July), there were simply too many of them to hold onto for that long. So, our surgeons got really good at sterilizing the itty bitty 2-pounders so they could go home right away once they were placed on the adoption floor, which was usually about 48-72 hours after surgery. The boys were barely aware anything had even happened to them, the incisions were so small we glued them shut instead of using traditional needle-and-thread stitches; the girls were a little sore for a few days, but they were also right back to their usual kitten antics in less than a week.
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 34,458 Member
    edited March 2022
    all-caps-defcon-1 KITTEN SEASON
    :lol:

    I do not miss being at the shelter this time of year.

    SoMany
    KITTEHS
  • goal06082021
    goal06082021 Posts: 2,130 Member
    @cmriverside I did specifically cat adoptions, and this was South Florida so it was never really *not* Kitten Season - there were many a St. Catty's Day/St. Pawtrick's Day waived-fee or "BOGO" adoption promo because we were already starting to fill up with baby cats. Heck, we had Kitten Bowls several years in a row on Superbowl weekend. My workstation was right outside the post-surgery cat recovery room. the mewing...the mewing!
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 34,458 Member
    @goal06082021 I actually laughed out loud at your, "the mewing...the mewing!"

    I live in a pretty small one bedroom place. There have been [too many] queens with kittens here as foster animals. It was not my most intelligent time(s) in life, that much I know is true.
    I had to stop working at the shelter - they took over my whole life! All I wanted was to volunteer four hours a week and I ended up with three resident adult cats and an ever-rotating number of pooping/ getting into everything/always somebody on the injured list or sick cast of kittens.

    One of the women who worked in the shelter said the word Kitten with such disgust and derision that you'd think she hated them - but she was working in the cat foster section. :lol:

    They'll break your heart in good and bad ways.
  • SuzanneC1l9zz
    SuzanneC1l9zz Posts: 460 Member
    lb65quwyg5dq.jpg

    We also have a Pixie. She's a whopping 8 lbs and has thumbs! 🥰
  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,968 Member
    Miss Pixie is 3.5 years old, too old for this. She's hurting, but also stubborn. They gave us pain medicine for her, she seems pretty loopy. She's using the stairs we got her.

    For the next few days Pixie is living in the bedroom, she has a human in with her at pretty much all times, and I'm kitten sitting and getting food. Right now I have one sprite sleeping on me and another is sitting in my lap chewing the drawstring in my pants.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,617 Member
    Miss Pixie is 3.5 years old, too old for this. She's hurting, but also stubborn. They gave us pain medicine for her, she seems pretty loopy. She's using the stairs we got her.

    For the next few days Pixie is living in the bedroom, she has a human in with her at pretty much all times, and I'm kitten sitting and getting food. Right now I have one sprite sleeping on me and another is sitting in my lap chewing the drawstring in my pants.

    Yet you didn't post any kitten photos? 😉
  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,968 Member
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    Miss Pixie is 3.5 years old, too old for this. She's hurting, but also stubborn. They gave us pain medicine for her, she seems pretty loopy. She's using the stairs we got her.

    For the next few days Pixie is living in the bedroom, she has a human in with her at pretty much all times, and I'm kitten sitting and getting food. Right now I have one sprite sleeping on me and another is sitting in my lap chewing the drawstring in my pants.

    Yet you didn't post any kitten photos? 😉

    I need to figure this photo hosting thing out, I posted some kitten photos in the first post but some people have told me the pictures just don't load for them. ☹️

    I'm going out for a ride, I'll post some more photos later today. 🙂
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 34,458 Member
    I see all the kitten pics. I'm on the web on firefox...
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,617 Member
    They showed up just fine for me - Chrome on web, slow/unreliable wireless here. Sometimes MFP photos don't load, especially if on a page with multiples of them. Usually reloading, or resetting the wireless connection then reloading, works FWIW.

    Your first adorable photos are why I'm pleading for more!
  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,968 Member
    I'm keeping the tux and the girl with the tail that's bent like a hook. ❤️

    I've known them since the morning they were born.
  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,968 Member
    I don't really have a good picture of it, but you can kind of see from this one. Momma cat has the same tail with the same two bends, hers is shorter though.

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  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 34,458 Member
    edited March 2022
    Oh, man.
    FULL TILT! IT'S ON!
    Then crashy crasherson.
    Kittens come in two speeds.
    They're so flippety cute. :smile:
  • ReenieHJ
    ReenieHJ Posts: 9,724 Member
    So adorable! All the kitties!

    Chuckled when I read the topic title, first thought was 'just how big of a kitten are we talking?'
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,617 Member
    Oh, thank you: So cute, fun! They're all wonderful, but that photo of the enthusiastic-looking bite-y one with the toe beans all gathered up . . . oh, gosh! 😻
  • Sinisterbarbie1
    Sinisterbarbie1 Posts: 711 Member
    I would take up wrestling for this! The bite-y one is adorable and the one with major whiskers!! They are all so loveable! My two kitties say enough already… back to us….
  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,968 Member
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    Oh, thank you: So cute, fun! They're all wonderful, but that photo of the enthusiastic-looking bite-y one with the toe beans all gathered up . . . oh, gosh! 😻

    He spent two hours sleeping on my lap the other day, I had to get up and move in the middle so I held him to my leg, we went to a work meeting together and he slept through it. Then another hour later in the day. (I wfh so lately I work from the neighbor's home and kitten sit during the day.) He wants play more than anything in the world, he will ignore food if he thinks there's anything to play with. So I play with him. From his perspective, I'm always giving him what his kitten heart desires, so he found his human.

    He likes to wear himself out with his brothers and sisters and then come nap against my leg while I work. I sit on the couch with the laptop on my lap and he does this:

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  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,968 Member
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    The last photo is Sahale, she's going to live with me, too. She and Old Snowy (the tuxedo) play together all the time like a little clique. I love her tail, just like her momma's, and she's a darling girl. I'm glad to keep them together since they're so bonded, too. She was my immediate first choice, and that bond might be part of why I get Snowy.