Savannah's Paw Tracks

The Hole in the Wall Gang: New Twist!

HIYA!!   SAVANNAH HERE!!!

Oh boy, oh boy!! Do I have an adventure to share with my loyal readers!! So pull up a seat and enjoy  this kitten and mom cat rescue. Of course the rescue of the Hole in the Wall Gang started on a pretty normal morning for my castle. Humans and feline furramily all enjoying a nice morning stretch before Dad P goes down stairs to get our brekkies prepared.

1. Then about 8 AM, Mom L got a call from a lady she helped three years ago rescue a mom and 6 kittens. This time, the lady and her grown children think they hear scratching and maybe mewing in their garage.

Mom L, Dad P and my pet sitter Miss Kandi all go over about 10 AM and search and search. Nothing heard or seen.

2. Next day, April 6, Mom L gets a text about 6:30 AM from the same lady. This time they saw some wires up near the ceiling of the garage move and they heard mewing.

3. Mom L gets another rescue buddy, Miss Venus, and they go over about 8 AM. Nothing heard or seen—and then!!!

Mom L hears scratching in the wall above a freezer and sees the cable wires move a teeny bit.

The wires go into a hole in the back wall of the garage. Miss Venus and Mom L find a tall ladder from a neighbor and Miss Venus goes up to try to peer into the small hole using a flashlight. Nope! Can’t see anything, but now they can hear the scratching again and wait! Was that an itty-bitty mew???

4. They don’t have any tools to cut into the wallboard. So Miss Venus calls on her good friend, who is a contractor,—Mr. Ron. He comes right over! And he has just the right small power saw to cut through the wallboard. So up he goes to do some cutting.

Miss Venus goes back up and tells Mom L to get a soft towel and a carrier. She can now see one or two tiny kittens!! And they are ALIVE!!!

6. Miss Venus hands down about 4-5 tiny kittens, some with eyes still closed. Mom L takes a quick photo and so does Mr. Ron.

7. He is excited too! Then Miss Venus says “I can see more!” But they are too far away. Mr. Ron goes back up and cuts another hole to the right of the first one.

8. Miss Venus goes back up and YIKES!! She starts handing more kittens to Mom L until there are TWELVE!!

9. Mr. Ron decides that one of the kittens, a very tiny one, must be named “Tiger”! And he gets a selfie with that itty-bitty kitten! What a hero!!

9. Mind you, Mom L has only ever seen ONE mom cat hanging around all morning watching the action near her babies. She is a small all black kitty. But TWELVE kittens from one mom cat??? Mom cats only have eight “dinner plates” to serve their kittens. Maybe that’s why several of the kittens are clearly smaller?? Because they didn’t get to have as much time at the dinner table???
10. So Mom L, Miss Venus and Miss Jeanne set up a “kittens as bait” trap to hopefully trap the babies mom cat. The kittens are safe and warm in a carrier at the back and a humane Tomahawk cat trap is set up in front. We hope that Mom will hear her babies crying for food and come to care for them.

Long story short, by 8:30 PM, that same day, Mom L saw ANOTHER mom cat approaching the kitten bait trap set-up!! That’s it!! There are TWO MOM CATS who found the same birthing space most likely within 7-10 days of each other. We are betting that the moms are related!!

We tried the gray mom with eight of the smallest kittens and she refused to even look at them. So then we pulled them out and put in the four that were bigger. After about two hours, our gray mom cat started to nurse her babies!! It was midnight, but it was a day well spent!!

The other mom cat refused her eight babies for over 12 hours so Miss Jeanne, her foster human, had to bottle feed eight kittens. But the next day, by early afternoon, after placing each kitten, one at a time with their black mom cat, she was nursing them all!!!

I want to introduce you to the twelve members of The Hole in the Wall Gang!! I have Butch Cassidy( light gray tabby) and his gang of three living in my castle—The Domino Kid (black with white dot on throat), Jesse James (all gray), Laughing Sam (all gray with white speedo trunks between his hind legs).

Here are a few more action shots of Butch and his members of The Hole in the Wall Gang.

And Miss Jeanne has Sundance and his gang of seven at her home.

I know my story is long but I hope you will stay one minute more to enjoy the 60 second video I made showing my foster kittens growing up and learning to play!! Just shot yesterday!

PAW PATS, SAVANNAH