Help Needed In Japan

[Norachan]

Wonderful!



That looks a lot better.

No, there's no such thing as an over fed kitten. They'll eat around double what an adult cat will for the first year of their lives.

At least it felt that way with the last litter of kittens I cared for.

 

[Norachan]

Here's a video that you might find useful. Check out Kitten Lady's channel, she has some great advice on how to care for cats.


I love your cage by the way, did you get those wire sheets from Daiso?

 

[Sarthur2]

No, the kittens may eat unlimited food, and the extra calcium will not hurt them.

 

[catwoman707]

Cage looks great, much more space!
Did I forget to mention my two-cents, she is surely pregnant again, no doubt in my mind.
Earlier I was trying to convince you that the kittens need full blown taming now, or you will end up with kittens who hide from strangers and will take months to adjust to their new homes, but will always be more semi-feral and skittish. You want to spend time with each of them wrapped tightly in a towel like a burrito, carry them around with you, touching face, ears, kisses.
You dont want to keep them hidden, so they stay in box or content only when cage is covered.
It actually makes it harder and take longer with mom to run to, they also watch how she acts towards you and feed off that.
I just dont want to see you stuck with kittens that are too shy to find homes for.

 

[Solcita]

Hi guys, thank you very much for your words.
It's funny how we all end up in the same videos, I already been watching a lot of videos on how to socialize kittens.
We are about to bring the cats now to the rescue center. Kato (mom) will be neutered and stayed the night, and from today on they will be totally separated, so we can start handling the kittens directly.
I have been talking to them a lot, I leave the kitchen door open and I tell them everything I do in order to talk a lot... I've been feeding them with a spoon and with my hand. But Mini2 is very shy and won't eat much.

My husband used to be the one putting things in and out of the cage the first couple of days, but lately I've been doing all the care for the cats, so now they got to trust me and they don't really like DH... as they are in the hall on the way to the toilet, they see us pretty often, even when we don't intend to... and every time he goes to the toilet he gets hissed... while they mostly ignore me.
Now, I can open the cage to feed them, clean the litter, etc... without them hiding from me. Sometimes Kato even stays layind down right next to where I will put the stuff. I haven't even tried to pet her as I don't want to cause any violent situation in front of the kittens...
Today she even called them out of the box to bath them while we were around. They don't run to hide the second they see us and sometimes you might go by without them running. But yes, I am desperated to start touching them and having them on us rather than behind their mom. We knew socializing them with Kato in the middle is next to impossible (specially as we are newbies and space is rather limited), so we had to make the decision to socialize the kittens and release Kato after her surgery (when vet says it's ok to release her back), rather than try to socialize them all... today I was fantasizing with the idea of giving the kittens to someone else to socialize (as they are small and cute it might be easier to place them) and keep Kato, as she is opening more to me, but I know it might be too difficult.

I will update when we come back FIV results, age, gender!
On the other hand I keep uploading pics of the kittens in facebook and kittens groups to make the others fall in love with them and luckily find them a home for as soon as they are ready to go.

Thank you guuuuuuuuuys

PS: YES, the cage is all built with Daiso stuff, we originally did a 4 floors cage (catio) for like 5,000 yen... and when we moved to a first floor we kept everything in storage just in case. We also use them to cover the windows, as our cats are fully indoors we are terrified of them escaping... We have been pretty busy but I have been looking for the old pics of the building as some people have been asking me for a tutorial

 

[Norachan]

Good luck today, I hope everything goes well.



Kato will stick around. You'll still be leaving food out for her, right? maybe after the kittens have been rehomed you could think about socialising her more.

Lots of my cats came inside in stages. Food first, then spaying or neutering, then indoor-outdoor and now indoor-enclosure only.

Please keep us posted.

 

[Solcita]

Hi!
Nice to hear that we might be able to socialize her more.

Today we went to the rescue center and to our surprised they kept them all three... as they were all in the same cage, and she wasn't going into surgery until later, they said it might be better to keep them together, they will separate them and place them in the separated cages for us to pick them up tomorrow.

They believe the kittens are younger than we anticipated as the guys asked twice if they were not 1 month old even when we said we thought they were close to 2 months (8 weeks)... then he said that even said he won't vaccinate them because they were too young (?).

So basically Kato will be spayed, and the kittens will get blood test for FIV, they will also check if they have worms and treat them if necessary. They will also tell us their genders.

It was actually good that they all stayed as we had time and space to build the new cage for the kittens with a proper litter box inside.


It now has 2 doors, one for the litter box and one for feeding in the front. The idea is that eventually we will leave them open for them to come and go, once we introduce them to our cats.
We are still using the materials from our old catio

 

[Solcita]

The catio in our old balcony was a lot bigger...
Now with Kato's cage (where she still is) and the kittens' big cage, we officially ran out of materials...

For those who asked, we also use them to cover our windows to make sure the cats don't go out


I love Daiso...

Will update you tomorrow after they come back! Everything is sooo quiet here today...

 

[Norachan]

I love Daiso...

Oh, me too.



That is a very impressive cage, I think the kittens are going to be quite comfortable in there.

Most vets will give the first vaccination when the kitten is 600 grams. Almost all of my rescues and foster kittens were feral born, so I wasn't sure exactly how old they were. Going by weight is the easiest way. At least they'll be treated for parasites and blood tested, that's one hurdle out of the way.

Do the kittens have blue or green eyes? They usually change colour at around 6 weeks, which gives you another clue as to how old they are.

 

[surya]

The cage looks nice. We just got a Daiso in Houston. I need to check it out. It is good if the kittens are young. The best time to tame them is before they are eight weeks. After that is gets increasingly more difficult, the older they get. Sometimes they are just small for their age, because they weren't getting enough to eat. The feral life is hard.

 

[Solcita]

Most vets will give the first vaccination when the kitten is 600 grams.
Do the kittens have blue or green eyes? They usually change colour at around 6 weeks, which gives you another clue as to how old they are.

Good to know about the vaccinations, I guess they'll go to our regular vet for that if they are with us when that time comes.

Regarding eye color, they were rather blue when we met them but right now they are a lot darker, but you can tell the change is not complete yet.

The best time to tame them is before they are eight weeks. After that is gets increasingly more difficult, the older they get. Sometimes they are just small for their age, because they weren't getting enough to eat. The feral life is hard.

So we can ignore size but the eyes plus Kato's acting during those weeks, it seems our estimation of age might be closer to theirs...

Yes I was super worried about the socialization, that week they disappeared really screw us over and before that I was out most days so it was worthless catching them. I'm going away next week so DH will have to reaaally do his best to keep socializing them. Hopefully by then he will just follow whatever we start doing from today...

Thank you everyone!! Going to work now and later pick them up!

 

[Solcita]

Hi everybody... today was a veeery long day.
We arrived with the cats 2 hours ago and we left them in the carriers covered for them to calm down. The kittens are placed in the big cage, they already ate and now are playing.
They are VERY aggressive and hissing all the time.

Kato is now a crying mom in the bathroom. She is relaxed though and hasn't hissed at all. I just gave her food and removed the litter. She started crying after I gave her food and is calling her kittens... DH just checked on her and she ate, but she threw everything around after... but when he went inside she didn't hiss at all, she is relaxed but looking for her kittens... it's gonna be a long night until releasing her tomorrow...

So facts:
They all had fleas.
THEY ARE FIV NEGATIVE. And both kittens are GIRLS.
The vet estimated their age at 8 weeks old.
Kato got a medicine shot so no need to give her any medications.
No vaccinations for the kittens yet.

One thing that upset us a bit is that it seems yesterday guy didn't tell them we wanted to know the gender of the kittens (which is for me fundamental in order to rehome them and check if we can neuter them before), and they had to check when we asked during pick up. So even when the kittens were OK and relaxed in the carrier, when they went to handle them they became very aggressive and after that started hissing and even attacking. So I thought it was unnecessary stress for them.

Let's see how everything progresses tonight and tomorrow...

THank you everybody! Will keep you updated!

 

[Solcita]

OK REAL HELP NEEDED NOW.
The kittens and mom remained separated for almost two days now.
We put the kittens in the cage and mom stayed in the old cage in the bathroom.
The night was OK, mom would call them sometimes but not so loud.

This early morning we released her... and OMG... she won't stop yelling outside and the isuse is one of the kittens freaked out and started crying out loud like if we were killing her.
Mini1 is doing fine, doesn't cry, ate.
Mini2 is the shy one who won't stop crying and yelling... and refused food.

NEITHER OF THEM used the toilet since we put them in the cage (almost 12 hours by now), as we changed the litter, I put part of the old one in the new litter box, but the kittens were already crazy over hearing their mom.

Now we moved them to the bathroom where they cannot hear her, and she now doesn't know where they are as she is looking around other places.

How long will this last? DH is freaking out as he feels he is torturing Kato who is outside looking at us asking for help...
I already requested fosters to move the kittens ASAP, but if we don't manage this and this goes on this loud all day I'm afraid we won't be able to keep them apart as we cannot wait a week for this to be over without having issues with our neigobors.

I don't even want to think of keeping them in a cage until the kittens can be spayed and then released with mom... :'(

 

[white shadow]

.
I am simply going to post "my 2 cents" -

From the moment that separation of kittens and mom was first mentioned, I cringed.

I fail to understand the rush to separation - the mother cat seems to have acclimatized to the humans. Surely it will be better for the kittens to remain together and with the mother so that all settle down.

With the feral moms and kittens that Jcatbird has taken in and socialized, there has been no rushed separation - and, the kittens have become the perfectly adoptable models. Why is it in this situation that the same cannot be expected to occur?

It seems to me that this (too) early separation will cause far more harm than good where it comes to well-adjusted, happy kittens.

I'll say no more.
.



.

 

[Solcita]

.
I fail to understand the rush to separation - the mother cat seems to have acclimatized to the humans. Surely it will be better for the kittens to remain together and with the mother so that all settle down.

With the feral moms and kittens that Jcatbird has taken in and socialized, there has been no rushed separation - and, the kittens have become the perfectly adoptable models. Why is it in this situation that the same cannot be expected to occur?

It seems to me that this (too) early separation will cause far more harm than good where it comes to well-adjusted, happy kittens.

.

Thank you for your input. I am surprised because I thought keeping them together was not a choice...

The kittens are 8 weeks old already, if we delay their socialization it might be impossible to do so in the future?
When with mom, the kittens are behind her all the time, Mini1 did eat from my hand, and is driven by food and play... but we were never able to actually pet her while in the cage or pick her up as she had mom there with her (while outside we could pick her up for very small period of times while playing before she would freak out and hiss)
Mini2 was aaaaalways behind mom and impossible to interact with her at all.

The mother is 100% feral, so we cannot socialize her, and tyring to do so with the kittens involved was too high risk? I am afraid if we try to socialize them all together it might be impossible.

How would socialization with mom involved work?
We are already regretting separating and we try to convince ourselves it's the best for all of them... and the rescue center just told us to even turn on the TV so the kittens cannot hear Kato outside calling them... so for them bringing them together seems to be also a no no...

Very very confused! (and heartbroken)

 

[surya]

I have only kept one feral mother with kittens and I had her and the babies in a kitty condo in my bedroom. My other four kitties were all in the living room of my apartment. As soon as the kittens were old enough, the mom was off to the vet to be fixed and the kittens were separated to be tamed. I was able to start the taming process when they were still with the mother, by using a plastic Rubbermaid lid so I could grab the kittens away with out getting clawed or bitten. But the cage I had them in was much bigger than the one you were using. I did not have the space or time to care for a feral cat in my tiny apartment. As it was, I did not get a lot of sleep with them in my bedroom.

I think you are stressed out enough dealing with the babies and you don't need to worry about how other people might do things. It's what I would have done and how many other rescuers would handle it. Jcatbird is awesome and I hope she has some good advice on dealing with the mom crying. Can you try and sound proof the kitten area, so they can't hear the mom calling them? Have yous started working with the kittens? Have you tried the burrito method?

 

[Jcatbird]

Hello. I am so sorry for your pain. I can tell you that it is possible to socialize Mom and babies. If you are interested in doing that , there is hope. I have worked doing that myself. My heart is with you. If you want to bring Mother back in there are many people here who would try to help you through the process. Many people are under the impression that ferals cannot be socialized. That may be true for some but I have not run into that problem yet. Some take longer than others and it can take patience but I have done it. Just this past year I have brought in 100 cats and kittens. So far 71 have been socialized and adopted. Some of the cats were dumped pets but many were born in the woods after generations of feral breeding. True feral cats. I have not read all of your thread yet but I did see some of the problems you were having with the kittens when Mom cat was with them. There are ways to deal with those problems that do not include putting mother outside. The separation can be done as you need to handle the babies. For example, letting the kittens out of the cage to play with them. Using toys to get their interest is a good way to get their attention and bring them close to you. I have used many tricks to bring the kittens right into my lap to be petted. They learn very quickly that humans can provide food and petting that feels very nice to a kitty. Mom can learn as well. If you would like to send me a private message then I will be happy to tell you what I have learned as I have worked with the kitties. You can also do a search on this site for help. If you look for feral and rescued cats you should find me and others who do kitty rescues and socialization. There are some great rescuers on this site who have acquired a lot of knowledge and experience over years of working with cats. I am sure they would all be willing to help. I know the trauma of separating the kittens from their mother is very upsetting. Again, I am so sorry you and the kitties have been having a sad time. I hope everything will get better. Please keep writing. We all care what happens.

 

[Norachan]

Hi Solcita

First of all I'm really glad to hear all that cats are clear of FIV, that will make re-homing a lot easier.

As far as keeping the mother and kittens separate goes; I've done it both ways. I've had two litters, one at 10 weeks and one at 4 weeks, who were without a mother and so socialised by themselves. I've also had feral born kittens that were kept indoors but met up with their indoor/outdoor semi-feral mothers daily until they were adopted at between 4 and 6 months.

Every cat and kitten is different. There are even huge differences between how tame litter mates became, even though they were handled in exactly the same way.

I don't think it's possible to have a set-in-stone rule for how you do this, you have to decide by yourself.

If you bring the mother back indoors you could allow her outside alone for a couple of hours a day and spend that time trying to bond with the kittens. It might be a lot easier for everyone, cats and people, to deal with being apart in a month or so.

Just handle the kittens as much as you can now though. Put on a thick sweater and gloves, wrap the kitten up in a blanket and sit there gently petting and talking to them. They might not like it at first, but they'll get used to the idea soon enough.

You've got the Kitten Lady videos and there's plenty of other stuff on You Tube to guide you.

And I strongly recommend investing in some Feliway, it helps a lot. You can get a diffuser and the liquid on Rakuten

Just go with your heart. If it's killing you to hear Kato outside let her back in.

 

[surya]

Either way you decide to do it is fine. The mom cat I had in my house is now very friendly and almost tame enough to be adopted, but I still can't take her inside. I can not afford the cats I already have. If I had my own home, I would be like Jcatbird and have my own rescue and bring in all the kitties. The most important thing right now is to spend all the time you can spare with the kittens. Friendly kittens get adopted. The reason I have four cats is because some of my foster cats never got adopted, they were not friendly enough at adoptions. The outgoing ones are the first to be chosen. Maybe if I had spent more time with them when they were babies they would have been. You have a short window of opportunity to get those babies to be friendly quickly so they can be saved. Outside kitties have very short lives where I live. I watch them disappear and sometimes I find their bodies. It is so sad, and saving them from that fate is one of the best things you can do. There will be time later to tame the mom. But bring her inside now if it will bring you peace of mind. The kittens are really cute. Let us know how it is going, we are all rooting for you and the cats.

 

[Sarthur2]

I suggest putting the mother and kittens back together. This separation is not necessary. It is too soon.