Foster Kittehs: Updated 2023

January 2023

I knew my semester was going to be busy, so I had already decided I was not going to do long term fosters but I thought I could do a short term medical foster. 

So I went and picked up this goof. She wasn't here a few days before I fell in love with her. She would come and snuggle on my chest and neck, and I just knew she was mind.

I named her Hazelnut because I'm a medievalist who loves Julian of Norwich.

I loved her, she was perfect. She was about five months old when I got her, had been alone, and then spent time in a kennel. She didn't know how to jump onto things, was a big snuggler, and liked to knead my neck and drool as she went into joyous oblivion.

But like a lot of singleton kittehs, she was an absolute terror- taking all her energy out on me. I started threatening her with getting her a playmate, a big, not-smart orange to terrorize her.

So one day I went back to the shelter to look at playmates for her, around the same age/size. They directed me to the room at the end and as soon as I entered and crouched down, this little floof jumped in my lap and nestled her head in my arm. So I walked her out and that was that.

I named her Birdie.

She was small enough when I got her that she fit under the couch, which proved useful as Hazelnut was "enthusiastic" in her affection for her new sister. They figured it out though, and now, months later, they're a good match.

They're big snugglers, and naps with them are my new favorite thing. Hazelnut has taken a while to learn how to share toys, she can be a bit of a bully. And she's still sometimes too aggressive in playing. She seems almost smug when she runs around with tuffs of Birdie's fur in her mouth. But Birdie gives as good as she gets, and her ability to jump to safe heights helps. 

They're both jealous girls- if I talk or pet to one, the other comes running. 

When Nehi died I never thought I'd have another animal. And through the years of fostering I loved it but never had any problem giving them back. I am so grateful for my girls. 

I know people with cats still foster, but I'm not sure if I will. I'm just loving my girls.

10 December 2022:

The Tea Squad went back- Momma Chamomile and the kittens Chai, Ginger, Earl Grey, Latte, and Oolong.

Litters are funny. In some ways they all go through the same thing- first exploration into the living room, discovering the bathtub and shower curtain, attacking the floor mat. First accident when they wander too far into the house and away from their litter box. When they first play with toys, first start to pounce and stalk you.

But I've also noticed that litters with mommas are very different. They tend to not seek you out as much, be happier to play with each other, stay in the kitten room.

It was great to have these bebes at the end of the semester, and it's always nice those last weeks when they all discover that you sit on the couch with a blanket most of the night and am therefore a captive audience for pets and snuggles. They were all very sweet and soft and I hope they're all adopted soon. Momma was very sweet and cute, even when she gently nipped me if she thought I wasn't paying her enough attention. The shelter was PACKED when I went to take them back. Cages and kennels stacked in the lobby and down the hall as well as packed halls.

I hope they all get forever homes.

23 October-

The semester is winding down, my schedule is too, and so I went and got some kittehs.

This is a Momma and five bebes. The shelter was not sure how old they were, they were all drop offs, but the kittens ears haven't really unfolded yet, so they still look like pandas. So maybe a week old?

Momma is very nice and loves pets.

The kittens are starting to be more active, wrassle some.

With five kittens it'll be pure chaos here in a couple of weeks. It'll be great.

20 July-2 August 2022

These fosters are a little different. They're older, about 2 months, and just need a couple, few weeks of socialization. They're called "hissies" which I think is adorable.

They also have some congestion, so humidifier and meds for them to get them all better.

The tabby is like a little dragon, happy to stay curled up in her little bowl.

The tortie likes to be up high and watch everything.

The calico is the most "kitten"ish, playing with things, but only if you're not watching. She's also the only one still hissing, like a little, adorable vampire kitty.

Socializing is baby steps, first getting them used to you, then pets, then holding them, holding them on your lap. We're up to the lap stage, but hoping once their meds are done I can open the kitten room, let them explore a bit and learn about couch snuggles.

By the time I dropped them all off they were ducking into my hand for pets, would purr as soon as you came in the room KNOWING they were going to get pets, and just learning how to play.

They will make some folks excellent snuggle bugs!

30 April-22 June 2022

It seems like I was on a run of little-uns.

I actually went to pick up new bebes and Momma was still in labor with two out of the three, so came back the next day. Having bebes a day old is so amazing! Mom was an excellent momma. But this was also the bebe-est litter I've ever seen. They stuck tight to mom, and even in weeks 5 and 6 when most litters I've had are exploring and running around like chaos demons, these bebes were all still nursing! And hanging out all the time with mom.

They were the Ice Scream Squad so mom was Butter Pecan, then it was Oreo, Creamsicle, and Berry/Barry.

Even though the bebes were not big explorers they were very sweet and playful. They also all had very expressive faces.

Next month it will be two years of me fostering and scrolling through this post, it is a joy to remember all the wonderful kittehs.

I am taking an actual break for now, just a couple, few weeks. I'm not sure what fostering will look like come fall because I do have a really busy, all day, five days a week schedule. And I'm leary of getting a litter now with work starting back in a month and bebes being a two month committment. So we'll see.

So I name the fosters I get mainly to be able to tell them apart for weighing if they are kittens and for medicine if they're older. These are rarely the names they end up with as the SPCA often gives them different names at intake (before I get them). The Ice Scream Squad kept their names though (the kittens, not Mom, she already had a name). BUT I do want to share just how much I love how the SPCA staff names the cats that come in.

They do them in groups, and as you can see, just adorable.

Anyway, fostering is great, if you can do it or have an interest you should check out your local shelter.

And as always, check out your shelter if you're thinking about getting a cat or dog.

https://www.spcaofnenc.org/cats

26 February-22 April 2022

I've never had babies this tiny. They are a day old. There are three of them- one Calico, one black with white feet and chest with brown Groucho Marx eyebrows, and one black with white feet and chest. The momma is Enya and so far is a very good mommy.

2 months later...

All three bebes and Momma Enya all went back yesterday and the bebes hissed at the poor SPCA folks as they went to put them in the kitteh hall. I was so surprised! Momma would hiss to defend bebes, but the bebes never hissed! They were so fierce!

By the time they went back they had all learned the joys of yogurt and that the shaking bag did not mean death and RUN but treats.

They were all very cute, and Enya is very sweet, so hopefully they all get adopted soon. 

Enya's information page

Bibity became Isaac, and here's his information page

Mister Tux became Noah, and here's his information page

Callie became Ariel, and here's her information page

26 January 2022

I keep saying I'll take a longer mental health break between fosters and I never do.

Here's Benny! Here for a couple of weeks of meds. Kept him a little longer becase he had a bad tum-tum and wanted to make sure he was okay.

He was a BIG boy! But such a sweetie even though he could look so grumpy.

He was happiest when you sat down and he could just take up your whole lap!

6 January 2022

I had some more time than I thought I would before the semester starts, so I stopped by to see if they had any fosters.

These guys have Feline calicivirus which can be hard to foster because it's so contagious, you really shouldn't foster in a house with other animals. They just need 10 days of medicine. They're very cute, very soft and fluffy by very skittish.

I'm calling them Tigger (left) and Pooh (right).

Despite being a bit skittish, I can hear them thudding around and crashing into walls chasing toys in the kitteh room from the living room, which is pretty funny.

They love the cat tower, and playing with toys, and exploring at night. Pooh is better about coming out of the tower for pets and snuggles and Tigger while intrigued, isn't sold yet, although is a totaly purr monster when petted or brushed in his cat tower nest.

They go back Sunday for a check, see how they're doing.

3 December 2021

Holly is about 4 weeks old, just about at weight, and eating on her own. She came in by herself, so she'll be totally spoiled for the next month or so.

You can see here, she's in the playpen in the living room versus the kitten room so I can keep an eye on her, and she's forted into the heating pad so there's no chance of her falling off and not waking up because she's chilled. Also, even though she's about on target for weight, I'm supplemental bottle feeding her to make sure there are no issues, even though she's showing down on the slurry. I'm also being careful to weigh her daily. She's still not generating her own body heat, so I'm watching her closely.

So far she's a cutie patootie and I loves her.

Even at weight to go back Holly still looked very small.

She remained very soft and fluffy and playful. With singletons there is no one to play with, so I become to focus of all that stalk and pounce energy, but she learned "ow" and was pretty gentle. She loved all her toys and was very fun to watch.

I have no doubt that she'll quickly fine a home.

31 October 2021

Snickers and Doodles were kittens who had no mom. Gingersnaps' kittens did not survive, so she was feeding them.

Snickers came home very underweight, but was eating, and I was supplementing with syringe feeding, although without much success.

You can see here just how different she and her brother look.

Sadly, Snickers did not wake up one morning.

Doodles continued to do well, was fat and happy and an absolute riot, and ridiculously fun to have. He made weight and went back to the SPCA for adoption.

Gingersnaps had an eye infection, so she stayed an extra week to get meds then went back.

September 2021:

It's 17 October and I have not shared or written much about the latest fosters I had. I actually wasn't sure if I would/should/could write about them. They were a fail, not in that adopted them but that I lost two and took the surviving three back early.

I initially was not going to get fosters this semester because my scheduled seemed too busy, but by September I felt like the business of the beginning of the year had settled down and I felt like even though I was on campus a lot I had a handle on my schedule and could take in some fosters. There were five of them, three cow kittehs and two tabbies. They were very sweet, no underlying health conditions, but very infested with fleas. 

On the way home they were very feisty and cute, even with mess faces.

The shelter said to give them a bath for the the fleas which I did when I got home.

I did not use dish soap this time and I should have because I probably would have gotten more of the fleas and maybe would not have had to give them a second bath and maybe could have avoided what happened, but hindsight is 20/20 and I didn't know. The lessons learned are part of the reason I decided to update this post with the latest litter.

After the bath I put them all in the kitten room, on a fleece, on a heating pad, surrounded by rice mommas.

I should have made sure they were all much drier before I set them down.

I should have sat and stayed with them.

They were fine, but I can't help but feel that this made the weaker ones susceptible later.

I didn't mainly because I was lulled by fact that they were older than some litters I'd had, and did not have any underlying health conditions, I had a false sense of security.

They were clean-ish, even if the bathtub looked like a horror movie from all the flea dirt.

They were all very sweet, with wonderful personalities, and liked playing in the kitten room. After a couple of weeks I started letting them out of the kitten room and they had fun playing on the hardwood floors, exploring, and soon discovered the bankie and the couch was where the loving happened.

At the time, when I took the picture below, I thought it was funny. A version of "no talk me angry." But I should have been paying closer attention, and realized that kittens isolating from the rest, whether it was on my shoulder or in the room, is a warning sign.

I did not see it. That was the next problem.

They still had some fleas but not many. I was bleaching and replacing their bedding daily, but figured I'd bathe them again and use the dish soap this time to get rid of the rest of the fleas. Five kittens is a lot to bathe, so I tried to be as efficient as possible, not having them in the water too long, getting them towel dried quickly.

I should have made the water warmer.

I should have made sure they were drier after.

I should have stayed with them after.

I put them on the heating pad all snuggled together in the ktiten room, and went and did things in the house.

It was about an hour later I went to check on them and poked them all to make sure they were okay. One of the cow kittehs at the bottom of the pile did not move and was dead.

I spent the next several hours panicked about the rest. I brought them all into the living room with me, piled them on the heating pad, with warm rice mommas, and heated towels. Another one of the cow kittehs seemed sluggish so I went on the internet and started giving them honey and they perked up.

At the end they all seemed okay, were walking, playing, fine.

I put them all back in the kitten room on the heating pad and went to bed.

I've been fostering over a year and this was the first one I'd lost, and I was bereft. I felt so shitty, so bad, all I could do is run through a list of all the things I should have, could have done.

I took them to the shelter, and cried. A lot. I told them what I thought I should have done.

I had felt confident they were going to all be fine because I'd been doing this a year, and because they didn't have an underlying conditions. The really hard lesson I learned is that ALL bebe kittehs are vulnerable, weak, need to have all the attention. Until I return them back to the shelter, I need to act like they are all in danger.

The next couple of days, they all seemed fine, eating, playing, good. Then just a couple of days later in the morning when I went to go check on them one of the cow kittehs, the one who needed honey the  before, had moved off the heating pad at some point during the night and was dead.

The first one I felt so bad, beat myself up so much.

This one I just did not understand. Why would they move off the heating pad? What did I miss? What could I have done better? Different?

I took them, and the remaining three kitties to the shelter.

We talked how maybe since the cow kittens were the ones who died that maybe it was something genetic. I don't know. The three were not 2 lbs which is usually the adoptable weight and when I return them, but were eating, healthy, and while I felt really bad about taking them back early, I just could not keep them.

I came home, cleaned the room really well, packed everything back into the closer.

In December, once the semester is done and I have a solid month of being home, I'll go back and see if they have kittehs that need fostering. As horrible as this experience was I won't stop fostering, but I will be so much more careful in the future. I hate that these lessons were learned at the expense of these kittens. I wish I'd done better. I know now not only to be more careful of, but that as much as I may want to forster, during the school year where so much of my time hectic and now that I'm back on campus all the time, I really can't. So it'll just be longer breaks for me- winter and summer.

July 2021:

In July I got another litter, this time five kittehs with no Momma. They were about 3 weeks old, but very sad looking. They kept sticking their whole heads, and feet, and paws, into their slurry food, and looked like a hot mess. 

So first things first, they all got a bath, and then regular food, lots of it, and while a couple took a while to stop standing in their food, most got it.

These were the Thundercat kitties- Panthro, Tigra, Mumm-Ra, and Kit and Kat. They ended up being VERY fluffy and soft and just the best cuddle bugs.

Here you can tell the difference, once they were clean and starting to fill out a bit.

Panthro had the most ridiculous belly.

I always think it's super funny how they all line up like this at night when I'm sitting on the couch. Then when they roll off or slide down, the funny is greater.

Because kittens need to be healthy and 2 lbs to go back and be fixed so they can be adopted, the shelter gave me a scale. Have you ever tried to put wriggly cuteness on a flat scale? It's ridiculous. But then I saw this video of a zoo putting a baby cheetah into a giant bowl on top of a scale to weigh them, so I put the kittehs in the tea pitcher to weigh them. They were so good and patient, and they were just ridiculously cute.

I took them back right before classes started because I'm back on campus full time, all day every day, and that's not conducive to fostering baby kittens. Plus, the first couple of weeks are always more hectic with longer days. Even once things settle down I'm not going to be home enough for kittens except for winter and summer breaks I think. I'm hoping I can foster some of the cats that need socialization, medicine, since those are usually 7-10 days, a couple of weeks, and they'd be okay being home during day by themselves with lots of cuddles at night on the couch.

The house feels very empty with no floofs around.

May 2021:

I have another momma and four bebes, two boys and two girls (although they'd just come in the day I picked them up, so were only like a week old, and it's a bit hard to tell).

Butterscotch is the momma and she is such a sweetie. It's a little funny to watch watch her step on the bebes heads to get pets. Kittens and cats usually come with names, but I rarely end up calling them that- the Halloween kittens were Boil, Boyle, Toil, and Trouble and I could not tell you what the shelter names were... I named them Ewok (because she is a fuzz ball), the tabby is L3-37 because she spent the first couple weeks talking all the time, until you picked her up and held her. The two boys are orange, just one lighter than the other, so I named them C3PO and BB8, the Droid Boys. BB8 is the darker one, and is the sassy one, the first to do everything. C3PO has that "Puss in Boots" wide eye look ALL THE TIME. He's a walking muppet.

The kittens all had eye issues when I got them, so needed ointment, which was a new experience for me. All of them had a scab over one eye. So every morning they got wet baby washcloth to gently clean, then ointment. After a few days, the Droid Boys eyes were fine, both open, doing well. Ewok and Elle's eyes got worse. Ewok's got bad enough I took her to the vet. Sadly, her one eye is no viable, but her other eye is clear and good, she's healing up, and doing fine. She'll have surgery in a couple weeks to remove the eye so there are no lingering issues. I watched Elle more closely, and sadly, her eye got worse, and I took them all into the shelter to check them out since this was not something I'd dealt with before. She got more warm compresses for a while, and once the scab came off she's healing, although she'll need the same surgery Ewok will have. I was worried for a while her other eye was not going to open or have similar issues, but now it's good, she's bright eyed, no issues, and learning to navigate. She's also no longer crying all the time, so I think it was her way of coping with feeling lost.

Many kittens have eye issues and it's usually due to kitten herpes that they get while being born. If treated there's a 50/50 chance of them doing well. 

They're all doing well. They're starting to use the litter ("trying" it out with mouths first, gack, toddlers), allowed some time to wander out of the kitten room, following mom, and wrestling more. They're very cute, and all very snuggly.

March 2021:

This time I got a semi-feral momma and her kittens who were a couple of weeks old. With bebe kittens the idea is to make sure kittens all live, are healthy. In this case, there was also the additional hope that mom would socialize some. 

So these were the first kittens I'd had in a while. I've been fostering almost a year, and have learned some things. I started them out in the playpen in the living room where I could keep a constant eye on them. After a couple of days I took the top off so momma could have some breaks. Because she was a little feral though as soon as she could, she ran off and hid (behind the fridge, behind the couch). She didn't abandon the babies, but she was hard to get. I started noticing that there were apparently "jail breaks" at night, with kittens missing. It turns out momma was stealing her bebes back from me.

So, I moved everyone to the kitten room, and the door stayed shut, so momma would take care of them, feel safe in a room, and I didn't have to traumatize her trying to get her out from behind stuff.

As the kittens got a bit older, they got exploring time, and then I'd wrangle them behind a baby gate in the kitten room, and momma would jump to join them.

These were gorgeous kittens, very sweet. Momma has Bengal markings, and Blackie and Brownie both had those markings as they got older. I've never seen that color brown before. One of the kittens was more tabby the other was a mini-me for mom.

They spent about six weeks with me, then went back for adoption. The hope for momma is someone will want a barn cat, and they'll fix her and let her be her wild self.

March 2021:

This is Dipper. He is a little panther bebe. He is gorgeous, so soft, and loves to play. He's a bit of a magpie, stealing things he loves and dragging them off to a hiding spot.

He's very, very photogenic, and a bit of a goofball.

January-February 2021:

This is Stevie. Stevie is very sweet, loves pets, snuggling, is happy to sleep next to you but does not want to miss anything, so everytime she nods off she catches herself, looks at you like "Nope, wasn't sleeping." She's very congested so the kitteh room has the humidifier going for nights, and we're sitting in the bathroom with steam going.

It was amazing to watch her feel better, her fur be cleaned, soft, and see her fill out!

Chatty is the oldest foster I've had so far. He's 4? 5? He's a BIG BOI. And despite his grumpy looking face he is a super sweetheart. He is totally chill, just wants to be where you are, and will follow you around. He's not a lap kitteh, but LOVES to be picked up, held, and rocked. He's such a sweetie!

December 2020:

Biker Dude was very skittish at first, startled easily, and hid a lot. But I gave him free reign of the kitteh room, let him hide, and gave him lots of pets and love. Once I realized he couldn't hear, it was easier to make things better for him. He was soon having the run of the house, and being a ridiculous lap kitty. He had great floof. He was also wacky about his mouse toy, playing with it all the time, carrying it around, and leaving it in his food bowl.

October-December 2020:

I got these four right before Halloween so called them Boil, Boyle, Toil, and Trouble. Their real names were Harry (orange), Hermione (grey tabby), Ron (white and grey), and Ravio (black). They're the smallest ones I've had so far, and had the longest. It was so cool to see them move from such little ones to big kittehs. They were initially due just for 10 days of medicine, but then the shelter was full so I kept them longer. 

Ravio and Ron went back, I kept Harry and Hermione a couple weeks longer. Then Hermione went back and it was just me and Harry.

He was super mischievious, and I loved him a lot.

October 2020:

Misty

Maise

I didn't have this pair for long, but they were super sweet, and loved pets and laps and chilling on the couch. They were a little old, little less than a year, but really enjoyed their time here.

First batch August/September 2020:

Mister Wilson

Raine

Shoe