Tis the season ...

... to run to Walmart on my lunch break to pick up KMR.

KMR, for the blessedly uninitiated, is kitten milk replacement formula.

Yep, kitten season has begun here in upstate New York.

We actually already had one litter of four, but mama was a sick stray and while she managed to pull through, her babies did not make it.

But last night I got a call from an intrepid soul who had already contacted every other rescue in town about a stray who was nursing four kittens in one of his window wells.  He tracked me down through the store where we do adoption events. 

One of the other volunteers was able to scoop up the babies (three weeks old!  squee!) last night, but she was unable to live-trap mama, who is evidently feral as the day is long, so we will go back over tonight to see if we can get mama so that she can continue nursing her kittens in foster care.

Right now the babies are being bottle-fed, which is what necessitated the KMR stockup run, and hopefully we will be able to re-unite mama with her babies.  Mama will be spayed, and will nurse her babies in foster care for as long as she is willing, and then, unless she makes a transformation to "tame" while she is nursing, she will be released back where she was trapped.

And yeah, that may sound ... less than ideal, but trust me, we struggle to find homes for even the friendly kitties.  Nobody, and I mean nobody, wants a cat they cannot pet, which is why I've had two feral fosters at my house since last August. *cough*

And just to burst one more bubble, that whole razz-ma-tazz about "barn cats"?  About how there are somehow farmers out there who are in DESPERATE NEED of barn cats, and will gladly take any feral cat we can supply to them?

Bullsh*t.  Complete bullsh*t.

For one thing, "barn cats" are self-replicating.  Due to the magic of nature, barn cats, left to their own devices, manage to carry on the barn cat tradition all on their own.  Every rescue with which I am familiar often gets calls FROM farmers, asking if we can help them with their OWN out-of-control barn cat populations.

So no, our feral mama will not be heading to a mythical "barn cat" home.  She will be spayed, and vaccinated, and released back from whence she came, where evidently a woman in the neighborhood is feeding the strays, which is a whole OTHER problem which I will not go into right now.

But!  Kittens!  Wee ones!  I get to go see them tonight!  Lucky me.

Oh!  And guess what ELSE I get to do tonight!  Give BUTTER a bath!  Yaaaaaaayyyyy!  *sarcasm*

For those of you wondering, Butter is doing just fine.  He has been in foster care these past weeks gradually making the transition, on his own timetable,  from "street stray" to "pet", although he still stinks to high heaven thanks to all that man-cat testosterone taking its sweet time leaving his system.  So tonight will be bath time, which is one of the very last steps before the rescue starts calling people who have been patiently wait-listing for orange boys.  His foster home had some doubts about whether he was going to friendly-up sufficiently, but when he jumped in his foster mom's lap the other day and demanded cuddles, it was decided that the time has come.

Soon, Butter.   You will be in your real home, real soon.