Wrong names

 I have been confused. I will go back and correct previous blogs.

Poe is the big boy who has been desexed. Peppa is the little girl who doesn't get her share of food.

Peppa (L) and Poe (R)

Plus, Simba is the 8 year old, tabby male and Khandi is the grey tabby, 2 year old girl

Simba, 8 yo boy

Khandi, 2 yo girl

I know this because Irene came by this afternoon with a kitten to be microchipped and vaccinated. She knows everything about every(cat)body.

Tommy and Mia's kittens, Bonnie (tortie girl) and Lemmy (white and grey boy) have been moved to above where Khandi and Simba were before they moved out and Peach moved in. They are both heavy enough to be desexed and are high up.

Bonnie and Lemmy

Peach seems to have recovered from her move or was she exhausted by her upstairs neighbours.

Peach

Beauty, yet another black cat in residence has the most amazing eyes. They are both amber and green now that she is relaxed enough to look at you.

Beauty

And Duke's eye operation seems to be successful. He can blink his right eye now. He is such a sweetie.

Duke

Team Terrific

 The combination of a terrific team of workers, no visitors, the computer down and very few phone calls meant that I had an easy day. I even left my camera a home so can use some of Joy's lovely snaps.

Diego

Diego gets lots of Joy snap time. He is holding a pink ping pong ball ready to hit it back to her. He is getting friendlier by the week. As is his mum, Remi.

Simba and Khandi have moved to a double in Boarding. Much better except that they are below Poe and Peppa who get fed more often than they do. Poe is much younger than Peppa who got desexed yesterday. She has a touch of the flu and doesn't like Babycat. So you have to hang over them while they eat to make sure that she gets a fair share. Simba and Khandi follow each mouthful, almost. They are always hungry.

Khandi

Simba

Wanda doesn't like Babycat either. She is as thin as she can be with five kittens feeding on her. So I spent the day feeding her small meals of various tins with a bit of raw meat to encourage her to eat.

Wanda + 1

Her adopted kittens (the first lot that she rejected before she gave birth, sensibly) can climb out of the sleeping room. Her ginger can too but he looks like he has a touch of the flu. At one stage today, the big three were "out" with "mum" and ginger boy was lying back with his head on the tiny grey's tummy.

Violet and her kittens have gone to a foster home. In her condo are three street cats. We are expecting a fourth. They are Gloria's kittens. All torties, so far. And smart enough to be frightened.

Gloria's three

 

Valentine is out in the main room ready to be adopted. In her place is Ruby, another older cat who wonders where on earth she is but is prepared to greet any person with purrs and rubs.

Ruby

More boys

 Violet's kittens names have been chosen: Iris, Lilac, Mauve, Magenta, Lavender

The kittens are too small for us to tell their sex yet. And these all sound like girl's names to me. I suppose you could change Magenta to Magento, Lilac to Liluke and Lavender to Laven. Dr Google tells me that:

The overall sex ratio at birth was 100 males to 92 females. There was a significant seasonal effect on sex ratio with litters conceived during the wet season (September to February) producing more males than expected and litters conceived during the dry season producing more females than expected.

 They are to go to a foster home on Sunday. I managed to change their birth towel to a clean one by enticing Violet out of their area with chicken. I closed the swing door, changed the towel and opened the door again before she had gobbled it all down.

Wanda + 5

I managed to change Wanda's towel as well after I took this photo of the kittens all lined up except for the sticky beak ginger one which is her own kitten.

Wanda's kittens

And while I was distributing chicken I noticed that Megsy had turned himself around. Let's hope that this is the beginning of him loosing his fear of us.

Megsy

Blueberry's eye is still a little squinty but I didn't hear any sneezes today.

Blueberry

I had a lovely time hand feeding bits of chicken to Beauty, Amelia and Annie in turn. The only problem is that Amelia can put her paw into Beauty's stand alone to steal Beauty's food if the modesty sheet is not drawn around it. (Annie feels much better today, thank you. But Amy is not a happy cat in her condo on high.)

Adoption Tails: From shy to loved

 Tigger was the shyest of the Hercules, Freddy, Molly and Tigger litter of kittens who came to us In September last year. He was the last to be adopted on Jan 9 this year. (His sister Molly died). After not hearing anything from his adopters for a month it was great to get this message with photos.

Tigger now Simba

1 month: Tigger has well and truly come out of his shell. He is getting lots of cuddles. 

What happened to his brothers?

Freddy is now Remi. He was adopted on October 31.

1 day: Freddie didn't eat or drink on Saturday and was hiding all night. His new owner spent a lot of time with him and he is starting to come out of his shell a bit, accepting strokes today.

1 week: Freddy/Remi is settling in well. He still mostly hides under the bed when something scares him, but he is beginning to become a lot more confident. He is very food motivated.

1 month: no word.

Hercules was adopted on Dec 3.

1 day: Hercules doing really well. Still shy but plays with the son of the house and they are giving him space. He will let the son stroke him when he is eating. The dad called to ask if they should be worried that Hercules is very quiet and doesn't make any sounds. I reassured him that he was lucky to have a quiet cat! 

Thereafter: no word.

Maple update

1 week: Maple is very happy. Eating loads and settling into the house well. Soooo cuddly (when she wants to be).

1 month: Things are great with Maple. She has settled in really well and gets better all the time.

Maple

Double bunnies

 Coco and her original friend Lily (they didn't get along together) were desexed yesterday. Today they were both decidedly seedy. Lily hid in her green igloo and Coco sulked in her litter tray. When I arrived Lily's rabbit run was on top of Coco's. So that I couldn't open Coco's flap to clean her and give her new food (which she wasn't interested in anyway). So I moved the couch out of the vestibule to the hallway outside and positioned Lily in her rabbit run there. Not one of the vollies noticed that the couch was outside and the there was a different rabbit in the vestibule.

Bunny instead of couch

They were all too excited to be coming to work at Safe Haven, of course.

Especially excited as we have a pair of 9-10 year old Persians, Gigi and Bambi who are very close. They are super friendly and love to be brushed even though they don't look as though they have had much attention recently.

Bambi (girl)

Gigi (boy)

Augustus and Darcee are looking much better. The vets who treated them asked after Augustus. 

A couple arrived early (around 11am) to ask to adopt a kitten that I thought would be suitable for their family (!) We chose Lunar because 1. She looked like the first cat that he had and 2. because Annie was a bit off colour this morning. All adoptions should be so easy. I said as they left that if they found that one kitten was not enough for their 2 kids, they should come back and get Sunny tomorrow. They might.

Mia in Incoming has been reunited with her Tommy out back. He is pleased. He gets twice the food and all the cuddles this way because she holds back. Their kittens had a wonderful time without Mia. There was mess all over their condo twice this morning. But Rod eventually sorted them out.

Tommy and Mia

Their delinquents: Bonnie and Lemmy

Violet had 5 babies on Sunday. I looked up my colour book and found the following names:

Purple names

Joy found more purple names: 

Ones I don't like as they are not purple enough: Sapphire, Iris, Topaz, Bluebell.

Ones' I do like: Lilac, Lavender, Amethyst, Roxo (Portuguese for purple. Confirmed by my husband who was born in Portugal and lived there until a teenager. He pronounces it Rocho which is a splendid name for a hyperactive kitten), Viola or Violeta.

This is an excellent example of why it is best to have just one person naming kittens.

Clever Cody: Adoption (and other fat) Tails

 I had just sat down to do an Adoption Tales and Cody set up a racket downstairs. Even my husband rushed to see what was wrong. He had caught a fat tailed gecko in the garage. I picked it up and put it back into the garage (for another day) and told him what a clever cat he is.

Frankie, Adopted on Jan 5, 2022

Frankie when he first came to us

1 day: Full of beans and not interested in staying in the spare room. Boys adore him and are over the moon. Had trouble sourcing the food he eats but finally found a Petbarn that sells it. Sue advised to keep him in the room as long as they can even if he wants to come out, need to establish that as a safe place and also a place he can be put when they have other doors/windows open.  

1 week: All good. He's established the spare room as his and comes out a bit during the day to explore. He's company for the boys, eating well and using the litter tray. The boys are still feeding and cleaning.

1 month: Everything is going fantastic. Frankie is very much part of the family. Comes and plonks down on Erica's chest at night for cuddles but enjoying romps with the boys in the evening. Never far from his new family but needs to be taught not to jump on the kitchen bench. Gave her some tips on how to teach him,

Aster and River, adopted on Dec 23, 2021

Aster and River

1 day: Both have settled in really well.

1 week: Their new owner says that they are becoming part of the family.

1 month: Aster and River are great. It took them a while to pee into the litter tray.

Maple (Can't do better than the previous photo)

1 month: Things are great with Maple. She is settling in really well and is getting better all the time.

Rula Adopted 27/12/21

Rula

1 day: Rula is doing great. They kept her in her quiet room last night but she wanted to explore the house today. She wanders around and back to her room when she needs to. Her owner thanked us for giving them a great match. We answered that she may seem like she wants to explore but she is probably checking routes for escape and that's why we advise keeping her in a room for at least 2 weeks.

1 week: She has settled in nicely and is doing well. She loves a cuddle and a pat and sitting on the laptop!

1 month: Rula has settled in very well. She loves 'helping' her owner with her computer work and looking out the window.

Violet explosion imminent

 A picture tells the story.

Violet's tummy

How many kittens are in that tummy? We should find out tonight or tomorrow.

Blueberry and Blackberry made a very brief appearance on the "To be Adopted" page but Blueberry sneezed, Tim looked into her squinty eyes and took them both off the list. They had been moved into Max's stand alone.

Black and Blueberries

Mum Peach was left alone. . . . at last. Is she grieving or is she coming down with the flu too?

Peach

Over on Naughty Row, Taylor is looking much better. 

Taylor

And Lucky looked at me and thought "chicken". . . honestly. I could read her body language. The cats know what day of the week it is.

Goldie is going to be the only kitten available this weekend. She is much friendlier since Stormy was adopted.

Goldie

(PS. I had lunch with Max again. This time I sat on the chair. He stropped my legs then jumped onto the grey stratchy pole so that he could walk onto my lap. He visited for a bit and then retired to his shelf. He is a cool cat and is training me to treat him the way he wants to be treated.

Midsummer madness

 As you can imagine I carefully checked that Mayka was in her stand alone when I arrived this morning. She was. And the rubbish men had not come yet so I hurried around collecting the black bags on the verandah to take down to other people's not quite full garbage bins. Then I noticed that Remi's condo door was wide open. I walked carefully down naughty row and her condo was in a state of disorder (not uncommon with Remi) but her igloo had lost a leg and was on its side. I was VERY releaved when I was greeted by the usual Remi hiss-spit. She was on her upper ledge, at the back, as usual (unless there is food on offer). What a relief.

After that the day went smoothly despite a new vollie having to drop out late last night because her husband has Covid. Catsie came instead so I had a full team who worked like a dream. Thank you.

They were all high on the fact that Pete and Buddy got adopted on Monday. I scrubbed out their condo trying to put all the energy in it to keep them from coming back to it.

Wanda has a new kitten called Midsummer. It is grey and much smaller than the rest of her collection. She seems to have accepted it very well and her neck is looking much better with the anitibiotic cream. 

Midsummer in the middle

We have new cats including a pregnant mum, Violet who didn't give birth today.  Her expression indicates that she has never done anything that could lead to that!

Violet

And Duke, out back in Boarding who needs twice daily eye drops. It looks like his right eyelid is missing. He is very patient with strangers who insist on dropping cold liquid into his eye.

Duke

Next to  Duke is Stephi who has just been desexed, as has Amy's Annie.

Stephi

And we have another Peanut where Tammy used to be. (Tammy is slowly settling into Tim's house full of cats). I doubt that this Peanut will be as charming as the last one, but live in hope for another miracle.

Peanut

Big nights for the M's

 Mayka had her big night last night. She got out of her stand alone during the afternoon and led her staff on a merry dance to try to get her back into it. They gave up evenutally and left a litter tray out for her and delicious food inside the stand alone. When I arrived, opened the front door to let the stink dissapate and walked towards the verandah door to open it, I noticed that her cage doors were open and she was nowhere in sight. I moved very quickly to close the front door! 

Eventually I found her behind her stand alone, snuggled down on a Safe T-shirt. I tried to grab her to throw her back in but she bit me but good and ran off to hide somewhere in the main cattery. The vollies spotted her under the small table at Casper's end. We stuffed that with towels and put something utterly delicious in a carry cage. No way was she going to fall for that. 

When Geoff arrived we leaned on his WIRES expertise and she lead us a merry dance. At one stage she was behind the merchandise shelves between the back screen and the wall. . .. a space of all of 2 cm. She hunkered down below the trolly next to Max and we struggled to corner her and Geoff managed to squish her (evidently cats can squish safely) and got her back into her stand alone. He has a hole in his cat proof gloves as well as in his finger for his efforts. We NEED more bandaids.

Mayka not happy to be home

Of course, Max had watched all this drama. So when things settled down, we decided that he deserved a quiet place and I wheeled him into the freshly fogged play place where Trixie had spent the night. He took his time to get out of his stand alone. (The wires seem to confuse him. Perhaps he is short sighted). But once "FREE" he happily found a good place to curl up. I joined him at lunch time and he came out of hiding to quietly be with me and to explore after which he happily went back to his good place and went  to sleep. He will have a lovely time there tonight.

He didn't say a word through the entire process. Perhaps because we had a family brought in by a fosterer. (She kept one of her "lot" for a little longer). Included is Tommy who didn't shut up. He is an entire male so he pongs as he sings.

Tommy

His lady love, Mia is in Incoming with their two kittens Bonnie and Lemmy.

Mia, the mum

Bonnie and Lemmy

The fosterer also brought in Peppa and Poe who may be related to Tommy. They are both tuxedos and 4-6months old sweeties.

Post script

 In the excitement of an exhausted modem, I forgot to tell the story of my arrival at Safe Haven on Wednesday morning. 

As I drove down towards Roseville Bridge it started to drizzle. I worried that I didn't have a rain coat and wonderd how would I get the garbage bags out to the bins without getting wet. 

When I arrived at Safe, it was obvious that the garbos had been there before me. They had emptied both the council bins and the residential bins. And this was at 7am!

Well, it solved my problem about getting wet. Later when the rain stopped, I brought the council bin up to unit 19 and filled it full with the bags on the verandah. 

Which means that everybody needs to take home a couple of bags. PLEASE.

Otherwise I will have to get to the cattery at 6am next Wednesday.

Baby names

 Sorry about no blog last night. The modem decided to go wrong, even though all the lights were shining. I left it to think about it overnight. This morning there were no lights so I turned it off, waited a bit and then back on again. It seems to have worked.

We had a quiet day yesterday. The only visitors were fosterers who came to pick up more baby cat food.

We were thrilled by the "Please clean" sign on Tammy's condo. We assumed that Tim has taken her with him on holiday. I wanted to leave it there to surprise and delight the rest of this week's vollies. But Irene assures me that we need every available condo for the raft of kittens that she has parked on foster carers. So I gave it a deep clean, with bleach, gumption, muscle power. . . . the full Monty.

There is only one boarder whose owner is very devoted and wants daily reports on how she is settling in. There are 70 other cats in residence, and one rabbit. Only 9 of the cats are on the Safe webpage ready for adoption.

Valentine is a new cat in Iso, aged 15. Her owner has moved to the old people's home. The kids were coming by occasionally to feed her. She is desperate for the kind of companionship that she is used to.

Valentine

Trixie overnighted in the play place. She had a marvellous time and needed a good long sleep today to recover. I tried the Ragdolls there (separately). Augustus grumbled and grouched until he found the dog scratchy pole (brand name Buono Fido!) to curl up in to go to sleep. He wouldn't come out when it was time to go back to his condo. So I had to carry him in the scratchy pole to the condo. When there, he promptly got out of it, of course.

Augustus

Darcee settled in well after Augustus (and fogging). He curled up and napped until I joined him for lunch. Then he sat beside me. He didn't want my salad. He just wanted pats. He is a nudger: stop patting him and he will prompt you to continue by nudging your hand. Cute!

There is a new cat below Augustus named Lee-Lee (as opposed to Lele). She is young and very sweet. Don't know her story.

Lee-Lee

The newborn kittens have names. Three of them came from Jayde's when Wanda was with them and knew that they were not her kittens. They are Pickles: the calico, Racoon: the tabby with swirls and Squiggle: the tabby with parallel lines. Sandy and I decided that Wanda's own kitten, the ginger should be a Q name and chose Quentin if a boy, and Queeny if a girl. I changed the birthing towel for a clean one.