Kittens and Orchard Cat

I was planning on making some much needed progress on the orchard this weekend.  Unfortunately, this weekend’s plans have been fully derailed.  Yesterday, I discovered that a mother cat has been using the crawl space of my home as her lair for raising her four kittens.

After some extraordinary effort, I managed to catch all four of the kittens.  I was very surprised that noone called the police considering the murderous screams that each of the kittens bellowed out when they were caught.  I had no idea such tiny little things were capable of decibels as loud as my home security siren.  The only one that came quietly was the last one which I had to resort to catching with a live trap baited with a piece of sardine.

The kittens are still nursing but are also eating solid food.  They must think they have landed in heaven considering they are being fed homemade raw pet food that I make for my miniature pinscher. 

Three of the four kittens are orange tabbies like their mother.  The last kitten is a tortoise.  She is the only female in the litter.  I am going to try to see if anyone I know would be interested in adopting the kittens.  I am also going to try to see if I can find a rescue organization that can get the kittens and the mom vetted and spayed/neutered.  I am hoping the kittens will get adopted quickly just because they are SOOOO cute.  If the mom does not get adopted, I will try keeping her.  If she doesn’t play nice with the dogs then I will have no choice but to release her after getting her spayed.  She might even make a good “Orchard Cat” if I release her at the orchard to help keep the field mice/snake population at bay.  As the orchard becomes established, she can also help keep the squirrels, chipmunks, and birds from the fruits.

Here’s what I spent the weekend watching: