Love in 6 Kittens, Ticks and Madre de Cacao
For several years, I secretly longed for kittens as I missed the days that Castor, Pollux and Fuma were tiny and cute. My boys are still pretty cute but evolved into their own respective beings with very distinct personalities and specific demands, including predilections–they were less demanding when they were tiny is really all I want to say. Little did I know I would take in more than 3 cats, in fact, stumbled upon six newborns found in the trash.
Today we woke up with the sound of multiple cries and we found out that an unnamed stranger put 6 little kittens in a plastic bag, right next to our community garbage bins and kept them hidden under a piece of plywood. Knowing they will never survive and no one will take them in, we made an irrevocable decision to take them in without any plans if we are keeping them all or fostering them until we can find new human slaves parents for all of them later. We didn’t even bother telling and preparing our über territorial cats of five to six-ish years. May the one who threw these babies be held accountable for his actions (I dare say kidnap and frustrated murder) and may he wake up to compassion.
I had the privilege of caring for different types of animals growing up but in that fairly robust list of critters, newborn kittens (infested with ticks, mind you) are nonexistent. Good news is, we can learn and we are blessed with many friends who are experienced raising very young kittens–and successful at it too.
So, here we go. Slightly, I get teary eyed as I say goodbye to my goodnight’s sleep for a few weeks and some of our plans since these kittens will need a lot of care until they can do it for themselves. Here’s to hope that we know what the heck we’re doing and foster these kittens well.
Little did I know kittens this size need to be fed every 2 to 3 hours, then you need to help them pee and poop too right aftereach feeding (definitely not prepared for this) need to be warm as they cannot control their body heat yet so that means stealing my husband’s socks and wrapping the hot bottles with it. I am sure he won’t mind. And I’ll have to give the critters another madre de cacao bath to get rid of the tick infestation (happy to report that these kittens were covered in ticks when we rescued them. This miracle plant is so effective that one bath got rid of 80% of the ticks. It gave so much comfort to the little ones)
We live in a world where most humans forget that our main purpose is to be stewards of our animal friends. I do what I can to be a good one. It is not always easy, yet like what a good friend says often, “If not us, who?” We have to be the change we want to see in the world, even if it means missing out on sleep, a few trips, eat out sessions and Sunday yoga.
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