Saturday, May 21st from 11 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.

Where:

The District at Green Valley Ranch. Click Here for a Map

Come out and meet some of our wonderful dogs and a few kittens too.

This photo of Twitch sitting on the scale gives a slightly misleading impression about how this whole operation went. Even without the scale, getting one of these guys to sit still for more than three seconds before darting one way or the other is nearly impossible. Actually weighing them was an exercise in madness! Oh sure, Twitch looks nice and calm here, but approximately a half second later, he was flying off in one direction and the scale was flying off in the other.

We did manage to get them to hold still long enough to get weights on each, and as we suspected, Lucky is the lightest and Twitch is the heaviest.

Not even one of them has reached three pounds yet. Considering how much these little ones eat, you would think they would weigh at least twice as much! Unfortunately, this means none of them are ready to be fixed. We really like to see them at three pounds before they are fixed, and that probably won’t happen for at least another couple of weeks.

On a slightly different note, the scale we used was just a standard, inexpensive kitchen scale. These usually go up to 10 or 20 pounds, and gives readings to 1 or 2 ounces. If you want one for yourself, pick one that has markings for 1 ounce. The 2 ounce ones simply aren’t accurate enough. A nice one should cost you between $20 and $30 at any store with a “kitchen” section. I wouldn’t, however, recommend using it in the kitchen after weighing kittens with it!

As I mentioned before, I feed the kittens by preparing their food on a large platter. Since I got tired of them climbing up my legs while I prepare their food–one actually made it all the way to the counter, once!–I don’t let them out of the bathroom until after I put the platter on the floor.

Honestly, the commotion they raise while waiting for me to open the door is completely over the top. How is it possible that kittens so small can make such loud meows? And the pawing at the door! It sounds like a pack of wolves in there!

Just take a look at this picture of the kittens, their little paws reaching under the door. Look at Ranger (I think!) on the left in mid-meow. I believe that is Butterfly next to him trying to shove her face through the one inch gap between the door and the floor. Goodness only knows who is on the right. Victoria? Grace? Either way, I can’t find words to describe the fuss she was making. These kittens are serious about their food!

When I finally do open the door, the kittens literally pour out. All of them. At the same time. They don’t even wait for the door to open more than three inches before they dive out of there. The last time I fed them, I actually think I heard a sonic boom as they flew past my feet.

If you watch carefully… and don’t blink!–you will see that this time, Grace was the first to get to the food dish. Usually it is Twitch and Floyd. Grace must have used some sort of trickery to beat those two! They are almost always first on the food, and the last off.

For the next post, I want to try to capture some action shots of them playing. I would have done it already, but it is actually pretty difficult to catch them doing something cute. You think you got the shot of Lucky in mid-air, just about to land on Victoria, but all you manage to catch is Luck’s behind as he tumbles to the floor. Time to charge up my “good” camera, and maybe call National Geographic for some hints…

As soon as the plate hits the floor, food begins to fly. The floor is covered in food. The kittens are covered in food. We’re covered in food. This is when personalities really start to show. Floyd and Twitch usually battle for the center of the dish, getting their legs and bellies completely covered. Grace can be pretty pushy as well, shoving aside her more polite litter-mates.

Lucky, on the other hand, gingerly picks at his food. He’s not particularly fond of the dry, so he attempts to eat around it. Victoria quietly takes her fill, ignoring the melee around her.

After several minutes of picking up kittens and putting them back in position around the dish, most of the food is pretty much picked clean. Kittens start wandering off–tracking food with them–to find a place to relax or play. Except for Twitch. Twitch likes to eat. A lot. I swear, he was so full last night we thought he was going to burst!

Check back tomorrow as I am going to make a post about the new kittens. They are all cute as buttons, but you’ll have to wait until tomorrow to see their pictures! Until then, I’ll be picking cat food out of my hair…

We snapped this post-bath photo of the soggy kittens. From the top left, we have Grace, Victoria and Ranger. Grace was not covered with foam, but she sure needed a bath! In the middle center is Twitch. Floyd is on the bottom.

It was somewhat cathartic for us to finally get a chance to give everyone a bath. We’ve been picking foam off the poor guys for a solid week, so the bath gave use some sense of closure. The kittens, on the other hand, we’re slightly less appreciative of the whole bathing experience. They were happy to finally be clean, though, and spent the next thirty minutes purring while grooming each other. We don’t have the heart to tell them that we think they’re going to need another bath…

If you’ve never given a kitten a bath before, the progression is generally this: You place the kitten gently in the water. This amuses the kitten, and they’ll usually paw around for a moment. After about five seconds of pawing, the kitten is no longer amused. As you can see in this picture of Grace and Floyd, the sense of amusement is clearly gone.

The kitten, deciding that being in water is not something a kitten generally wants to do, then attempts to leave the water. Unfortunately, this is not an option, so you do your best to keep them in the tub. This is where you get wet.

After applying kitten-shampoo to your wet and unamused kittens, you begin working it through their fur. At this point, however, the kittens have probably decided that you need to participate in their bath as well. You are now wet and soapy. Kittens are still unamused, which you can clearly see by Victoria and Twitch’s unamused expressions.

In the end, however, they resigned themselves to their soapy situation. In this picture, Ranger seems quite soapy and resigned.

Now that they are all squeaky clean, the next step for these five is a vet appointment to make sure they are healthy and to get their first kitten shots. Providing that all is well, they will receive a second kitten shot in four weeks. As for when they will be ready for adoption, that is hard to tell. They won’t be ready until they have been fixed, and they need to be three pounds for that. Considering how they eat, however, they are all well on their way!

We will keep everyone updated on this blog, and I’ll try to post a few more pictures of them playing and being kittens in the next few days. They are a pretty fun bunch, and we’re starting to see some really neat personalities.

He is alleged to have sealed the kittens into a block wall using urethane foam for reasons unknown at this point.

Five of the kittens are doing well and are in the tender loving care of Happy Home Animal Sanctuary volunteers, but one was so badly damaged that it had to be euthanized.