Feral Kitten Rescue | Savannah's Paw Tracks

Archive for the category “Feral Kitten Rescue”

23 Aug 2021

Kitten Season 2021 and counting…

HIYA!! SAVANNAH HERE!!!

I’m sure most of my readers know what “kitten season” means, but just in case—let me give you the 411 (info) in short. Kitten Season amongst those of us who do Trap, Neuter, Return (TNR) with abandoned community cats is a dread time of year. Spring through Summer and into Fall, until cold/wet weather shows up, male and female cats find each other to breed. Mom L , Dad P and me started our Delta View Cats all volunteer group to try to address at least the part of the “iceberg” we can find in our home town of Pittsburg, CA.

I thought you might be inner-ested in seeing some of the little dear kittens we have been able to at least trap and get them spayed and neutered, flea treated, vaccinated and microchipped. If they are older than 10 to 12 weeks, they are usually already too feral for a foster to attempt to socialize. And another “411”—fosters for kittens/cats are as scarce as those old hen’s teeth!!

Here are a few kittens that we could only TNR. We had no one to foster them or they were already too feral. You can see one Mom cat nursing a kitten in the red chair.

Other kittens were more fortunate ‘cuz we could find a foster or our partners at Community Concern For Cats(CC4C) took them in and found fosters. CC4C also provides most of the medical care for any kittens we can help to get socialized and they then go through their adoption program. The itty bitty kitten actually fell from above a front door. Mom cat was moving her kittens and he got restless and slipped from the roof above the front door. He is fine! The photo with some oranges actually has FIVE in it. Four kittens and their mom. I tried to draw circles around each one, let me know in comments if you could find them all. The cutie Snowshoe Siamese kitten was found stuck to a cactus!! No kittening around!! By a city resident and they unstuck her and she is now in foster care, but feral still. And the tabby kitten is with CC4C and doing very well.

Delta View Cats (DVC) has two volunteers who feed every other Sunday at our waterfront park colony. They also live in a large apartment complex and were happy to help an experienced cat trapper in trapping a dad cat and four kittens. Once they saw the kittens in the traps, their hearts melted and after our county animal services spayed/neutered etc., these two wonderful volunteers decided to foster the two sister and two brothers. The happiest day in the last five weeks since they took these sweet, but semi-feral kittens in, is TODAY!! YES!!! The bounded sisters, Luna and Xochitl, found their forever family today!! WOOT!! The girls are in the photo with the rainbow nip tow.

Now comes the most frustrating 411 I have. Kitten season is always an incredible challenge for all of us in California’s Contra Costa County. We have “breeding weather” a good part of the whole year. In the past we were able to receive support from our county’s Animal Services because they had a large network of kitten fosters and so they would intake healthy kittens of almost any age. If the kittens were very feral then of course they did not. BUT—under the cloak of “COVID”, our county animal services is no longer intaking ANY healthy kittens, friendly abandoned adults like they did before. We all understood why they could not intake such cats during the shut down from COVID, but they are now operating almost at 100% and they have established a “new” policy to not intake ANY healthy kittens, friendly adults going forward, forever.

Now you ask—” But what about dogs?” And I answer that our county animal services, during COVID, was able to spend funds to build another lovely, large exercise area for the dogs. But nothing has been done for the cats. Their position is that “animal sheltering says that cats do not do well in a shelter environment”. Right, dogs do not do well there either. BUT, Mom L, Dad P and me have been able to pull over 30 cats in the years before COVID, off the streets and get them adopted in to loving homes through our county animal services.

Somebody please help me understand why our county has stated that all us “small non-profits must manage our county’s over population of abandoned community cats”??!! WAIT!!! WHAT??? Many cities in California have actually started to INVEST city and county funds in TNR and their cities and county’s are providing leadership to get the small non-profits together to humanely address this over population.

So let me know in comments what’s up in your area about addressing the over population of abandoned community cats.

PAW PATS, SAVANNAH

Posted in Community Cats, Feral Kitten Rescue and tagged CC4C, feral kitten season, kitten socialization

12 Jul 2021

16 Comments

UPDATE: An afternoon at the Kitchen Kitten Clinic

HIYA!! SAVANNAH HERE!!!

I know most of my readers are very familiar with KITTEN SEASON! And you also know that Mom L, at my direction, has been volunteering with our partner nonprofit organization, Community Concern For Cats (CC4C) for over eight years at their almost weekly KITCHEN CLINIC.

This clinic takes place in the kitchen of the lady who manages CC4C. The attending veterinarian is my buddy Doc Josie. Mom L does the recording for medical records and Miss Gemma does all of the “holding” of the patients for Doc Josie.

This clinic is basically set up to prepare kittens for adoption. All kittens are from abandoned mom cats living outside as community cats. They receive the following when they come in for “The Works“!

FeLV test for feline leukemia
First FVRCP vaccination ( feline distemper)
First of a series of three, every two weeks, of Pyrantel for deworming
First of once a month treatment of Revolution for fleas
A general Vet check-up

Mind you, some kittens are resistant to these inflictions upon their bodies!! MOL!! Especially the part when they must be held still!

At this weekly clinic, Doc Josie also sees some only “medical cases” which can be adults or even kittens that are not thriving.

The handsome male brown tabby above had the biggest paws and so dark and handsome!

We see so many kittens, itty bitty ones, with eye infections. Sigh—the perils of being born wild in the out of doors. But with the wonderful fosters from CC4C and this Kitchen Clinic and Doc Josie, these littles are cured and thrive and find loving forever homes.

The above trio of kittens came to the clinic so thin, severe diarrhea and simply not putting on weight. Normally, kittens who are thriving gain one quarter pound per week. Miss Gemma told their foster that she would take them under her wing for care. Miss Gemma can snatch almost any kitten from the paws of death—and that’s no kidding!!!

Doc Josie and Miss Gemma brought out some yummy Nulo turkey and chicken wet food, good for kittens and adults. And the kittens chowed down! Mom L saw these kittens last week and they are doing GREAT!!!!

This Kitchen Clinic is Mom L’s most favorite thing to do ever!! She has learned so much and done things to help her bestie Doc Josie do surgical repairs to kitten’s butts and oh so many more things—not bad for a retirement project, right??

So what do ya think about our Paw It Forward work??

PAW PATS, SAVANNAH

Posted in Community Cats, Feral Kitten Rescue, foster kitties, paw it forward and tagged CC4C, Community Cats, paw it forward

25 Jan 2021

17 Comments

An update on kittens from Oak Hills Project

HIYA!! SAVANNAH HERE!!!

I thought you might enjoy some photo updates from the two kittens we were able to get into forever homes from that Oakhills project I posted about last year.

This is the TNR project that brought our very own foster kitten to us, Pipsqueak.

Mom L received an update in December on little Pip who is now in his forever home. He and his resident brofur, Barsik, are getting along just great! You can see Barsik in the background on one of the photos below. Pip has warmed right up to his new male and female humans and is doing so great!

It warms Mom L’s heart to know the kitten she worked so hard to socialize is now forever happy.

The other kitten from this project who found his forever home is Rocky. He was trapped the same night as Pip but he was released because Mom L couldn’t hear his thoughts about how much he wanted to be an indoor kitty!! Well Rocky was socialized through a screen patio door by the young son of the family where this colony hangs out in their backyard. And one day, the Mom decided to bring Rocky inside and he has been there ever since!