- Joined
- Nov 7, 2013
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Hi everybody,
I really could use some advice on the following situation:
I live on a beach in Morocco where there's a cat colony of about 20/25 members, many of which very young.
On the rooftop of my house used to be 4 kittens that were apparently doing 'ok' as they...well they were surviving without ever getting off that roof so I naturally assumed the mother providing for them. I've seen them a couple of times and my guess would be their age was between 2 weeks and 1 month.After a few weeks though something happened, and one day I came up to check as I was hearing a lot of meowing to find one of the kittens dead and another one (henceforward referred to as 'Puzzino') scared to death.. no trace of the other two. So I buried the unlucky one and from that day, for 3 days, I've gone up to give Puzzino some milk and also some small pieces of tuna, fearing that the mother had for some reasons abandoned him/them. By day 3 (that was yesterday by the way) Puzzino was really starting to look at me like his mother and above all I could hear him crying very often up there so I decided that the best solution to try was to take him down the rooftop and place him by my doorstep - on the beach, where most of the cats live and where there are a few mums with their kittens, roughly the same age judging by their sizes.
I have to admit though since I am trying to provide the best possible picture of the situation that I did see an adult cat (henceforward Noir) once on the rooftp after Puzzino remained alone, and she (I presume it's a she) was just standing by him. I know Noir very well as she hangs around all day in front of my doorstep (by the way, my doorstep is also a cafè and we feed the cats daily so that's why so many like to hang around here!); anyway, that is why I still thought that taking the little one down was worth trying,. I was hoping that if Noir was indeed the mother, well she could take care of him, but even if she wasn't or wasn't interested, there were still a couple of mothers and other young ones to hopefully accept him.
For two days now Puzzino has been staying outside, although I still personally give him some milk and something to eat (chiecken today) since when I fed the whole lot, Puzzino and the other young ones can only watch the adult ones jumping on top of each other to grab as much as possible!
I've seen him with Noir, she was licking him, but generally speaking he's always alone, shaking, and generally not seeming to be having a great time.
When I come near he tries to climb on my legs and sit on my lap, so it's getting harder to stay away from him but it's the right thing to do, right?
Ok here is my request then.. as you might have guessed I have no idea about what would be best for him! I know i've probably already taken some worng actions and I wouldn't want to do any more damage so i'd really appreciate any feedback on the matter!
Last but not least, I am unfortunately leaving Morocco in a week to return to Italy for a while....there will still be somebody looking after the cafè and feeding the cats but I wouldn't count on him to really take a specific interest in Puzzino... so I'm trying to leave him in the best possible condition to survive.
Many thanks,
Stefano
I really could use some advice on the following situation:
I live on a beach in Morocco where there's a cat colony of about 20/25 members, many of which very young.
On the rooftop of my house used to be 4 kittens that were apparently doing 'ok' as they...well they were surviving without ever getting off that roof so I naturally assumed the mother providing for them. I've seen them a couple of times and my guess would be their age was between 2 weeks and 1 month.After a few weeks though something happened, and one day I came up to check as I was hearing a lot of meowing to find one of the kittens dead and another one (henceforward referred to as 'Puzzino') scared to death.. no trace of the other two. So I buried the unlucky one and from that day, for 3 days, I've gone up to give Puzzino some milk and also some small pieces of tuna, fearing that the mother had for some reasons abandoned him/them. By day 3 (that was yesterday by the way) Puzzino was really starting to look at me like his mother and above all I could hear him crying very often up there so I decided that the best solution to try was to take him down the rooftop and place him by my doorstep - on the beach, where most of the cats live and where there are a few mums with their kittens, roughly the same age judging by their sizes.
I have to admit though since I am trying to provide the best possible picture of the situation that I did see an adult cat (henceforward Noir) once on the rooftp after Puzzino remained alone, and she (I presume it's a she) was just standing by him. I know Noir very well as she hangs around all day in front of my doorstep (by the way, my doorstep is also a cafè and we feed the cats daily so that's why so many like to hang around here!); anyway, that is why I still thought that taking the little one down was worth trying,. I was hoping that if Noir was indeed the mother, well she could take care of him, but even if she wasn't or wasn't interested, there were still a couple of mothers and other young ones to hopefully accept him.
For two days now Puzzino has been staying outside, although I still personally give him some milk and something to eat (chiecken today) since when I fed the whole lot, Puzzino and the other young ones can only watch the adult ones jumping on top of each other to grab as much as possible!
I've seen him with Noir, she was licking him, but generally speaking he's always alone, shaking, and generally not seeming to be having a great time.
When I come near he tries to climb on my legs and sit on my lap, so it's getting harder to stay away from him but it's the right thing to do, right?
Ok here is my request then.. as you might have guessed I have no idea about what would be best for him! I know i've probably already taken some worng actions and I wouldn't want to do any more damage so i'd really appreciate any feedback on the matter!
Last but not least, I am unfortunately leaving Morocco in a week to return to Italy for a while....there will still be somebody looking after the cafè and feeding the cats but I wouldn't count on him to really take a specific interest in Puzzino... so I'm trying to leave him in the best possible condition to survive.
Many thanks,
Stefano