I have cats

[rah]

Yes, you have to decide that once you adopt them if they're going to be outdoor/indoor cats, just indoor cats, or just outdoor cats. It makes a difference on what you need to do for extra care.

[Alexander's Horse]

They are definitely outdoor cats, although Remus keeps trying to follow me into the house, where mayhem would ensue. The difficult point is I will only be here for another year and I can't take them back, although on an outside chance maybe.

So while I want to help the mother and am happy to be a kind of crazy uncle to them, they also have to be able to fend for themselves. My wife reports Julie is starting to bring prey back to show us - rodents and birds, in the latter case just wings after she ate the rest. Mrs Horse isn't happy about that. She is allergic to cats so has been quite good about it on the whole.

What we're mainly doing is supplementing their diet with calcium - I gave them milk and some old cheesecake this morning. Julie and Remus like it, Romulus turned up her nose on the cake. That's good because Remus is smaller and gets less of the milk.

Also we are socialising them a bit around humans. A little girl just moved in next door so we don't want her scratched - the first thing the little girl will probably do when she sees the kittens is try and pick them up. That might not end well.

But domestication? We'll see how far we go. I'm kind of leaving that up to the cats. Now they rub up against my leg, sit close to me and stuff.

We all sit together on the porch and watch the world go by. I'm a solitary kind of person so I sort of "get" cats. They chose me, not the other way round. I think they like the fact I don't disturb them as they go about "cat stuff".

It's kind of neat for someone who has never had cats Also I don't want to take all the wildness out of them. For me, it is part of their beauty.

[FlameFlash]

Neat. Though if you're long term not going to be tending to them it's like birds: don't put out a feeder unless you're willing to commit to always putting out a feeder. You don't want to become too heavily a part of their lives if they're one day going to show up to an empty, abandoned porch.

Only doing a little calcium is a good thing. May even want to slowly wean them off and just be friendly to them after a bit.

[Thoth]

[FlameFlash]

Thoth's video of wrongness...

[Alexander's Horse]

just think when this site was busy with various onanists, a kitten would have died every few minutes, R&R would never have made it

[Alexander's Horse]

Remus playing with the toy I made out of a bottle top and wool - got it!

[Alexander's Horse]

The ginger kitten climbed an 8 foot chain-link fence the other day and got stuck spread eagled at the top, looking around helplessly - I wish I got a photo of that

[Alexander's Horse]

Missed! dang bottle top....

[Alexander's Horse]

A recent photo of me, with my Godmother Pat, on Christmas Day. She is talking to my Mum, her sister, on the phone, wishing each other a Merry Christmas

[Alexander's Horse]

Me, horsing around as you'd expect, telling my Mum her sister Pat is with me and doesn't want to talk to her right now

[Alexander's Horse]

[Thoth]

I hear they're pretty tasty with catsup.

[Uncle Sparky]

Hot dogs are yummier.

[Alexander's Horse]

the chances of these kittens surviving is not high