106

 I was curious and counted the cats in the cattery this afternoon. One hundred and six cats and kittens.

The most recent two are doing well. Cordelia is getting up to eat so I got a good photo of them.

Cordelia's two, at two days old

 Bree's three were on display as well. She keeps well to the rear and spits.

Bree plus 3

I tried to take a good photo of Le Clerc because the one on the Safe Haven website is very blurred. Mine were all as bad. That cat doesn't like to stand still. We let him out for a wander and a vollie took lots of photos with her phone. I hope she can send them to Irene to upload. He had a lovely play with the bobbles on a stick.

Gracie was out today. . . not out of her condo but off her sleeping shelf. It is a long time since her kittens were adopted. It would be good if she started to accept chin rubs as Shadow is doing in Incoming.

Gracie

Likewise, Ezra in Isolation, of the fluffy feet. He still spits.

Ezra

I carried Casper from Isolation to Wolfie's stand alone. No problem. He enjoyed it as much as I did. It didn't take him long to settle down. He will be on the "available" list as soon as he has been vaccinated.

Peaches and four of her kittens are back from the vet. She is in the stand alone in Isolation. She and the kittens have had two lots of medicine for their intestinal parasites. The littlest ones aren't eating well but Peaches is back to feeding them and she is eating well. Throw away any poo'y towels. We have plenty of towels. And no spare bags of washing today!

Don't know why nobody has snaffled Zoe and Maddy. They came in together but don't really seem to get on well. (Perhaps a clash of two dominant females). They enjoyed time in the top cat.

Zoe above, Maddy below, as usual

Cordelia is a mum

 I could tell that something was going on this morning when she wasn't waiting anxiously for her breakfast. I had a quick peak and saw one baby. Later on I saw another. Don't know if she had them today or I just missed the second one on my first brief peek. Later I got photos:

Cordelia with white with black kitten

Cordelia with white and ginger kitten

 We will have to read up on our Shakespeare to get names for them. There may be more by tomorrow.

Bree is getting more relaxed. We need names for her great gingers.

Bree and her ?boys

I tried to make friends with Shadow. He was not thrilled but submitted to being touched, briefly. Charley made real friends with him earlier so perhaps he was sick of the attention by the time I got to him.

Shadow

The other girl Shadow, on the other side of that condo block, renamed Codie, has got the sloppy, smelly poos. She may have got it from Peaches. Peaches and family are at the vets for tlc.

Zoe and Maddy are available for adoption, separately. One of them had inappropriate urinating problems in the home that she came from. So we have not labeled them as a bonded pair. Often two females together, if they are not related, have dominance issues that result in inappropriate peeing. 

Zoel and Maddy

The other Zoe is ready to a proper home, she tells me.

Zoe

And Wolfie has gone to his home. A young woman came in to adopt him from the play place. It was a wonderful opportunity to have a final cuddle. I quickly trimmed 6 of his nails before he realised what I was doing. I gave the trimmers to his new owner to finish off the job. All his daughters have been adopted as well.

 

Chicken magic

There were only three vollies to do all the work this morning. They did a splendid job even though they had to use the old yellow bucket and mop. I stopped on my way from tennis at the Bunnings just off Eastern Valley Way (It is HUGH. Sandy said that people go there for holidays). I bought a new spinning bucket/mop. It doesn't work by pumping a foot pedal but by pumping the mop handle. With any luck, the mechanical bits won't rust and fail within 6 months. Despite being only three they didn't leave much for me to do so I happily pottered about my animal behaviour duties. Silky's four are happy to be patted if there is milk or chicken involved. I was rather surprised at how avidly all the new cats took to the chicken. Like they had eaten it every day of their lives and had missed it being with us. For example, Miyuki and kittens (in the far corner in boarding) fell on chicken. I can't figure out their names because all are listed as black and white or with a black face but one is definitely grey.

This is the BW kittens and mum eating chicken.

Sabrina and her kittens, Luke, Oscar and Rosie also went wild for chicken and tried to stare extra out of me after I had handed it all out.

Lillian let me hold her dish while she ate it. This is as close as she has let me come so far. Such a beautiful cat.

After giving Ebony her share, I was horrified to find Cleo and Ant alone in their condo. What happened to Caesar? He has been moved to the condo above Matty and Maddy. I don't know if he is missing his siblings or is shocked by the goings on downstairs! Matty and Maddy make an excellent impression of clothes being washed in a top loading washing machine when you approach with food, of any kind. Chicken just increases the tumbling speed.

I think Silky's kittens will be available this weekend. They got milk as well as chicken so are softened up for the adopting hordes.

Meet Magnus

I don't know his story. His left eye may be sightless. He is a big boy so the name is appropriate even though the Elizabethian collar looks a bit sissy.

I delivered two filing cabinets that have been stored in Barb Webster's garage since Ingleside AWL folded. They still have "Cats Adopted" signs and empty files. One has a shallow drawer and one file draw. I hope that will live where we can access pens, scissors, sticky tape, paper clips etc. The other is a two file drawer unit on wheels. It will soon be filled up. The Stephanie kittens who were new on Wednesday and were two girls and two boys are actually four boys according to the vet who desexed them. And three of them have been adopted already. Only one remains, Arne (who used to be Anne Marie).

My excitement for the afternoon was after a mum and her daughter came to visit and drool over the cats. They have a rescue cat whom they adore. But they think that she needs a friend her own age and species. The other fur babies in the house are a pair of middle aged caboodles who love the cat, who is their boss. They loved Christopher, Charles, Sunny and Pepsi. But. . . . there is a teenaged son who is doing year 12 this year. He says that he could not abide another cat in the house. It would be too much distraction. He needs . . . . to be the center of the family universe. . . So the mum and daughter will come back another day. Tim was busy in the annex with a visiting dignitary. I was carefully handing out grain free treats to the cats. It is a bit hard to do animal behaviour training when you really cannot touch any of the cats for fear of spreading flu viruses. But I told the cats how lovely they are and here is a treat. I opened Matty and Maddy's door and he bolted. Luckily I got to the door to the boarding/off limit area before he did. He ran a few laps around the main cattery and then scaled Lily's wheely to hide on the top of the bank of condos behind all the for sale litter trays. I gently took all the trays down to floor level. Matty retreated behind the potted plastic plant. I moved the large black, cloth carrier that lives on top of Lily's wheely on the other side of the pot. I got the black blanket from underneath Maddy who was having a peaceful snooze with that dratted brother gone away. I covered the carrier with the cloth. Matty walked into the carrier. I zipped up the door. And let out a long-held breath. Putting him back onto his condo was no problem. I just had to put all those wretched litter trays back on top of the condo. Sooty was fascinated by all this. She watched from her condo across the way from Matty and Maddy.

And Lily wasn't phased by a ginger boy climbing up her walls. Her eye is back to normal after being fluey weepy on Wednesday.

Octavia has left the building

It happened yesterday. Tim said that the man who had adopted her and had such a struggle with his body corporate to accept that he should have a cat, finally won his case. When time came to parcel her up into a carry cage, Tim said that she turned herself inside out to love on him. So it was really easy to pop her into the carry case. Her new owner was watching so now knows that she can be a bundle of loving. I remember that I named her Octavia because she was "8" months old when she came to us. She had a sister, Quattro who was "4" months old when they arrived in June last year and was adopted promptly. Lily next.

Today was a busy day with boarders going home, vollies coming and going and sneezing cats all over the place. There are only 5 condos left occupied by boarders. We were full over Easter. We may have to rearrange everybody so that the sneezers can be confined to one area so that they don't infect the rest. Daphne is much better but her kittens came down with the flu.

The girl (who I call Dianthus) is quite well. She will eat her Baby Cat from a bowl. One of her brothers (with more white) will eat it from a spooon. But the other brother needs it to be squirted into his mouth just like we used to do to baby cats at Peggy Browns. I had forgotten the technique but it came back to me. Let the kitten chomp on the syringe, slip it behind the canines and gently press the plunger so that the milky food trickles into their mouth and they swallow rather than choke. But it takes time. I didn't have any time left over to take photos. But Joy did. The pregnant mum, Rosie who was taken off to a foster home kept trying to escape from there so was brought back, kittenless yesterday. During the afternoon after her redelivery, she popped 2 kittens. Overnight she popped another 3. . . we think. It is hard to count when peeking quickly so not to disturb her.

Matty had an adventure on Sunday night. He escaped from his and Maddy's condo at dinner time. Helen could not entice, force, coerce him down from the top of the air conditioner. So she left a litter box, his dinner, some water near his condo. By morning he was back with Maddy but hadn't eaten the offerings.

Bridie still doesn't like new people even if they are as nice as Joy.