New Kittens

Hello, and welcome to the marvellous world of new-born kittens!

Melissa the Cat delayed her birth till I returned from Canada - she was looking a bit preggers when I left, and I thought she would deliver before I got back to D'Kar - however, she held onto her babies and had them the day after I got back. Friday night, she settled herself in my closet, and Friday afternoon, with surprisingly little fuss, she gave birth to kitten number one:

As you can see, it's still wet from the womb... I didn't notice in time to see the birth itself, or the sac being licked away, but this is still the newest kitten I've ever had the good luck to witness. She waited an hour and a half and then had a second one, also orange. At this point she still looked fat - as though she had at least one or two left in her - but she didn't deliver her third kitten until almost 24 hours later. This alarmed me, because usually such a long delay between kittens means something has gone horribly wrong, but Melissa seemed cheerful and healthy the entire time, nursing her two kittens and purring non-stop, getting up to eat and drink occasionally. Sure enough, the following day she delivered a third kitten, seen below:

This one was black, and proved to be her last. Feeling very pleased with herself, Melissa settled down in my closet to nurse her tiny, squirming, helpless little babies. Newborn kittens - like most fresh-new-born creatures - are not actually that attractive. They can't move around, their eyes are sealed shut, their tails are wormy and their paws and faces seem raw, unpleasantly vulnerable and unfinished, naked in an uncomfortable sort of way. Still cute, but it's like a newborn human child - wrinkly and raw, they're much more attractive several months later.

They are small, though. Which is cute. Their paws look like little raspberries.

And their mother is very proud. She just lies in the closet purring continuously. It seems like she LOVES the sensation of having three little furry babies nursing and pushing their tiny, weak paws against her belly. Newborn kittens are completely blind and almost completely deaf; their ears are folded over and their eyes are sealed shut. They interact with the world through smell, with a keen recognition of their mother's and siblings' individual smells. When I pick one up their noses go into overtime as they pick up the unfamiliar human scent, and sometimes they hiss, tiny little kitten hisses that sound more like a quickly-exhaled breath than the ferocious TCCAHAAAH that Melissa uses to ward off her enemies.

Kittens at two days old.

This one is my favourite - not only is it most comfortable with being held, it reminds me most of Kimchi. Also, it was last-born and there's a lot of mythology associated with youngest/third-born children. Look at those tiny little whiskers, and little white toes!

This was the first-born, and it's the most uncomfortable with being picked up. I don't handle them very much, but I had to get some pictures of their development...

At a week old, they're already so much bigger!

Their happy home in my closet (see bottom left).

10 days old, and their eyes are beginning to open! They definitely react now when you take them out into the light, and their sweet blue eyes are peeking out between half-sealed eyelids. Look how tiny this one is compared to it's mother's foot! Their ears are also starting to unfold.


Eyes open, with a nasty little bit of birthing blood on the bottom of my closet... Gross, I know. Sorry.



So, I know that there are at least a few of you that are thinking, "this isn't cute at all! This is a gross disregard for animal welfare and I'm disgusted that any friend of mine could be so irresponsible as to let her cat give birth, TWICE. What does she think the overflowing RSPCA means, anyway? It's people like HER that are responsible for animal misery in this world, and damned if she's going to make a blog about how cute they are! Criminal negligence, that's what this is." To a certain degree I agree with you - feral cats are a threat to many kinds of native wildlife the world over, particularly birds, and I don't want to add to that problem. Abandoned cats with nobody to take care of them are also a problem.

However, in my defense, the following points:
1. Cat overpopulation is not much of a problem in D'Kar. Dogs are much worse. Possibly there's a situation much like the one in India, where the overpopulation of dogs makes sure that the cat population stays low? Also, though people here like to keep dogs as guard animals, far fewer people keep cats, or want to keep them. Animals aren't pets so much as workers, here.
2. At the time that Melissa got pregnant for the second time, it was extremely difficult to get her fixed - although a vet has now come to Ghanzi that will fix female cats, a few months ago you had to either go to Maun or wait for the travelling vet to come from Gaborone.
3. I was sure the second batch would all have homes to go to - a lot of people in the office were interested in her first litter but there weren't enough to go around. I think they're gaining populatity as rat-and-snake catchers on the farms.
4. Though I've never thought twice about this before, it felt like such a betrayal to cut off her reproductive future. Melissa isn't a housecat. She isn't a docile tame animal, dependent on humans for survival. She's a wild thing, who would barely let me touch the tip of her tail when I first started feeding her; I've left her for weeks at a time and she scavenges or hunts, fending for herself very ably. I'm not her owner, her mistress, or her life support - I'm sort of like a doting sugar mama, and she's a proud individual who comes in irregularly to eat, when she wants to and ONLY when she wants to. Of course she's been a bit more regular since her babies were born in my closet, but otherwise she's quite independent. So - although I'm going to do it as soon as she weans these kittens - I still feel quite guilty about it. I think that this could turn into a long discussion about the ethics, definition, and consequences of domestication, so I'm going to stop here, but please don't be too horrified by the kittens. I know it's irresponsible, but life is a beautiful thing... isn't it?