I spent a few hours yesterday assembling a fun KITTENS VIDEO to go on this “Feral Cats Project“ crowdfunding campaign. Made some final changes to the campaign description, the goal, the layout etc. I’ve done my market testing to be sure I have a few friends that want to contribute. (Hey, we even received an actual donation to the campaign already!) And I’ve been expecting to throw the switch and launch this 7-day campaign on our local Goshen Funded crowdfunding site some time this evening.
In the meantime, a funny thing has happened…
There was only one kitten hanging out on the back porch yesterday morning. By noon the kitten was gone. The whole cat family has up and left, and we don’t know where they have gone. Mama and Papa cat, who we have seen every day for the past three weeks, were nowhere to be seen yesterday. They did not return yesterday evening. They did not retreat to the back porch during the rain last night. There are no cats in our backyard this morning. They’ve up and moved. So with the disappearance of our star performers, the campaign is on hold, at least until we can discover where they’ve gone to.
Mother cats do predictably move their kittens around. At three to four weeks, the kittens are out and about, beginning to eat solid food, and are probably outgrowing their “nest.” In our case, after about three weeks the kittens had pretty well explored every part of our backyard. Most mother cats will move their litter at least once. First-time mamas will move them more frequently.
Too much attention may cause a move. We had a couple friends at our house on Friday, and there was quite a bit of doting over the adorable kittens. Cats are generally quiet, private creatures and don’t like too much attention. So that may have been what triggered this abrupt move.
Will we see these cats again? Our guess is they haven’t gone too far. We were not feeding the cats, but perhaps someone else in the neighborhood took pity on the mama and was feeding her regularly. She may have wanted the whole family to get a piece of the action.
As for the papa cat, no surprise that we have not seen him either because he adored that tortie. He practically worshiped her. He was gentle with the kittens too, but clearly it was the mama he was most devoted to. In all likelihood he followed her wherever she has gone.
