Category: Pets

Barn Cats First Trip to the Vet

We took the cats we trapped to the vet to get neutered. They were surprisingly chill in the car — not their favorite activity, but they were quiet and looking around as we drove. Dropped them off at a low cost / feral clinic in the morning, and we picked them all up a little after 4PM.

Each kitten has two days of pain killers & need to limit their activity. A neighbor will be taking the other gray kitten (the one we call Pebbles), but Ash and Fritter will be staying inside for a few more weeks so we can take them for a booster shot next month.

They are both recovering well so far — Fritter ended up having an incision in his belly, too, so Ash is recovering quicker. But they’re both happy to curl up together and nap.

Ash Kit

Ash Kit is doing well — he stays in Anya’s room at night, and I’m trying to train him to pounce on Anya to wake her up when the alarm starts in the morning.

Ash’s Age

We’re trying to figure out a birthday for Ash — On August 08th, we thought there was a bigger Cali-Kitty … but that was probably just Patches being pregnant. Patches didn’t look pregnant anymore on September 05th, and on October 11th we first saw the kittens. There are just over five weeks between these two dates. Five or six weeks old (per a quick Internet search) is about the time kittens have good enough vision & are coordinated enough to be running around and starting to play.

That means he was probably born a few days before September 5th … now we have to figure out a cake for cats … tuna cake? Well, we’ve got about nine months to figure it out 🙂

Bath Time for Kittens

Ash had his first bath today — he was pretty calm. He wasn’t super thrilled to be walking around in a tub full of water, but he loved her rubbing soap into his pelt. Getting rinsed off wasn’t awesome, but he was happy to be snuggled in a fluffy towel and dried off.

Kitten Returns

Anya got Ash back in the house! She fed him a big dish of tuna, and he let her pet him as he ate. She was petting his face and moved back down to pet his shoulders … and she picked him up and brought him back inside. I know she’ll be a lot more careful in the future so he doesn’t get outside until he really trusts us!

Kitten Snuggles

Ash is still a very snuggly kitten. Anya spends a lot of time holding him — she will read a book while he sleeps (and sometimes she naps too … I always tell her you know you are getting old when a nap sounds like a good idea, so now she tells me she’s getting old!)

Chicken Food

I’ve found a few good ideas for things chickens will feed themselves — include the compost area in the chicken pen, the chickens will turn the compost for you, eat fresh veggie scraps, and eat bugs they find.

Put a board or rubber mat down on the ground – let it sit there for a day or two, and a bunch of bugs will move in under it. Flip the board/mat into a new location & the chickens will go after the bugs that have been uncovered.

I also plan to grow a “chicken garden” in their coop — buckwheat, millet, flax, red clover, and forage peas. Hopefully they won’t confuse their garden with our garden. I want to try allowing them to roam in our raised bed garden to eat bugs … but I may end up fencing that off so they don’t eat our veggies!