Circle M Farm

I confess I’m a terrible farmer – I allowed my newest cats to have babies. But I’m so glad I did! What a guilty pleasure.

Mama Globule, named by my 15-year-old Jake, and affectionately called Glob for short, made a nice safe birthing nest in my potting table this afternoon. Tucked underneath a shelf, entirely surrounded by flats of seedlings and curled up in the black soil, she relaxed and let down the first baby five minutes later. Maggie, my 13-year-old, had called me over to show how cute she was cuddled up in the dirt. Then we realized a baby was snuggled beneath her! Smart little kitty. Up in the trough of the table, Glob was safe from the dogs, other cats, chickens and other carnivores that might wander past a vulnerable mama and her tiny blind babies. And she was at a perfect height for all of us to get a good look at the whole thing. How odd that baby cats should born looking just like mice – down to the pointy thin tails!

The births of the kittens were spaced at least an hour apart, which seemed dangerously long to me, but some research on the web assured me that was perfectly normal. Number 1, all black, was already licked and dry when we found it just before dinner. Number Two, black with a skunk-like stripe down it’s back, was still wet and connected by the umbilical cord after dinner. Number Three, black and white striped like it’s mama, we found four hours later after returning from a band concert at the high school. Concerned about raccoons and the now-curious father of the kittens, we gathered Glob and the babies up and put them in a basket in the garage. Glob promptly leaped out of the basket, with the recently-delivered baby hanging by the cord from her back end, mewing. Trying to reach the kitten, she ran in circles after it, while it continued to cry and grasp with it’s paws. Finally, she pounced on the baby, picked it up in her mouth and headed for a pile of wool stored under a table. We placed the two others in the new nest and left her alone. We’ll see what we find in the morning.

I have such fond memories of my pretty grey cat, Socks, giving birth when I was a child. She chose our great big dog’s bed in the garage for her nest. My brother and I sat on the steps coming out from the house and watched as she birthed out the babies and Moses, our giant Golden Retriever/Irish Wolfhound mix, licked each one off for her. I so wanted my kids to have the experience of seeing kittens born, just once! I’m wondrously thankful the babies came today, as Maggie and Emma are off for a trip to their Pennsylvania grandparents tomorrow morning. When the girls return in 5 days, the kittens still won’t have opened their eyes (that apparently happens around day 8) so they won’t have missed much.