Kittens have arrived!

You may remember back in March when we found three cats in our garage who seemed to have adopted us. Well, they won me over seeing as they are the sweetest lovable cats (I thought all cats were snobby as some I have known) and have stayed ever since. Seeing as I am allergic to them they are outdoor cats. When I posted about them I mentioned how we found out if they were male and female and how we assumed that Jumper would be having kittens. Evidently that did not take the first time as if it would have she would have had them around Memorial Day. Anyway, we did know she was expecting as we watched her belly get larger and saw other signs also. We knew it was getting closer as she managed to sneak in an opening door almost faster than you can blink and somehow managed to locate where the beds were. We did begin to keep our old garage open and prepared locations for her to have the kittens and tried to get her interested.

Sunday evening we came home and the boys went outside to play. They came running in saying that Jumper was skinny now which had been a question I asked them every morning when they fed the cats. Sure enough, she was and her tail was really wet also so we knew she must have just recently delivered. Next came the task of finding them. Jumper was all over us and obviously wasn't going to lead us to her babies. John heard mewing noises and found that she had delivered them in an old couch we had that was tipped upside down (don't worry, it was junk anyway). Somehow she managed to get them under the cushions three on one side and three on the other. She could not get to any of them to nurse so just sat there watching. I got her out and we closed the door so I could get the kittens put into the box we had prepared. I did not think that I would be able to do any of this but with my plastic kitchen gloves I can touch anything (I think).

She had six kittens but one did not make it as it had never gotten out of the sack and it seemed quite small to me. After we had the kittens settled we let Jumper in and she lay down by them but didn't seem to know what to do so I helped position the kittens near her to nurse. What a sweet little sound!

Jumper did not remove two of the placentas and I had hoped that she would get around to it but she didn't and as I saw it was starting to slow one down from getting to where it wanted to go I removed them for her with the assistance of my animal lover -- Pete. He did think it very gross but he stayed by my side anyway. She had two black, two orange (I guess technically called red), and one white kitten.

The children are so excited and wanting to hold the kittens but it is too soon so they only watch quietly. This evening unfortunately John found that one of the orange ones had died. He tried to revive it by rubbing on it but nothing. The children each took a turn holding it and studying it's features (yes, they did wash their hands after). The other four kittens seem to be vigorous and now do fit much better in line while nursing. We'll have to keep an eye on them.

Very exciting. It will be fun to watch their development each day.

Taken right after they were moved into the box and Jumper joined them. You can see some are still a little wet.

I loved this sweet little orange face. Unfortunately that is the one that died this evening.