Introducing ?
Well, here they are. Kitties 1 through 5. All this philosophical discussion about naming animals and still these have just numbers!
Since my girls are out of town, these darlings will have to wait for a few more days. Maggie had a few cute names picked out, but I honestly don’t remember which kittens to whom she gave them. Jake was the one who named the mom Globule, and that’s turned out to be a decidedly un-catlike catname, so I probably won’t ask him to name these. I’m not sure that Eli’s named any of this farm’s animals, though he does like to check in on the various babies. So –
Cat 1. Look at that tiny little umbilical cord still hanging on. While these cats still haven’t opened their eyes, and won’t for another week, they are showing signs of urinating (they’ve got damp back ends) and are filling out, looking less like mice. Their tails have gotten wider and more furry, too.
Eli noted that the kittens never stop moving. True. They seem never to sleep. Anytime you drop in on them in their cozy wool nest in the garage, they are squirming like a big pile of living fur and pink feet. Without their mama, they seem constantly driven to root and push, so that if you take one of them out of the group and set it on top of the pile, within minutes the order has been re-arranged and that kitten is on the bottom. Eli found one today working itself into a hole in a bag of wool next to the nest. When Globule is with them, they are generally lined up from her chin to tummy, nursing. But they aren’t sleepy like human babies of a few days old, they are still kicking and wiggling while they nurse. To pick one up from her side, you need to literally pop the little mouth off a nipple and untangle it’s claws from their grip on her pelt. And if I pick mama up, the babies all hang fast to her, dangling from her teats like windchimes! Clearly, cats are born with an incredible drive to survive, in spite of their helpless blind state. Even though they can’t walk, they can move quite far and quite powerfully by kicking and squirming. If I remove one, it immediately puts up a great squealing racket and Globule answers back.
We’ve concluded that she is eating their poop. Their plumbing is clearly working at this point – we can see tiny bits stuck to their tiny butts. But no little poops are in the nest. Based on the reading I’ve done about kittens, I believe they are like bunnies – they need the stimulation of a mama cat licking their tummies to eliminate. Mama cat, and bunny, too, likely just keeps licking and cleans the poop right up as the baby makes it. That way the nest stays clean for the several weeks they’ll remain in there. Fascinating! Birds have a similarly interesting way of keeping a nest clean. The babies turn their butts to the outside of the nest, lean their heads down into the nest and then shoot the poop up and over the rim. I wish potty training was that easy for us! Instinct is a fabulous thing.
