The Story of Audrey Catburn

Apparently a feral cat had set up a den underneath an old Carnation truck container my neighbor has set up as a garden shed. When momma cat got overwhelmed with taking care of 5 kits, she dumped the two smallest in an old rusted horse trailer in the yard.

My husband and I caught Conan and Audrey that day. They hissed and clawed and probably were not much bigger then Auds babies at 3 weeks. They were probably 3.5 months at the time. My neighbor had said I could just leave them there and she would feed them. I let her know its not a good idea to leave feral cats be without a minimum of spaying and neutering them unless she wanted 20 cats next year and 100 the year after. Its also easier to tame feral kittens when they are young preferably 4-9 weeks, older and it gets tougher. When we brought the two small waifs home and fed them they purred and ate like there was no tomorrow.

Aud & Conan were all eyes and ears on little tiny faces and delicate limbs. They moved faster then I have ever seen any cat move. The littlest, Conan, had an umbilical hernia. After several feedings and lots of purring I tried letting them out of the carrier to play. They played for a short time and then something startled them and the ran under the couch. For the next 3 days they snuck out from under the couch to eat but would not be seen or touched by humans. I gave up trying to lure them and finally ransacked the couch to catch them.

The couch is a HUGE thing. Its a sectional and each section probably weighs 100lbs. I had to pull them out one by one and flip them over. The kittens had found out how to navigate the insides of the sections where the parts for rocking them back and opening the foot board are hidden. I agonized over moving each sectional piece convinced I was going to crush a kitten. Finally the little boy popped out and 20 minutes later with much thumping on the furniture the little girl showed herself. For 2 more days I hand fed them and kept them in a carrier. On the third day they were pathetically meowing and we finally let them out to play again. This time they came when called and snuggled and purred and played like two dervishes. They loved being fed regularly.

All the while I had been working with the two small kittens I had been watching the garden shed at my neighbors. From observation I realized there were more kittens (large & fluffy) and their mother was still in evidence.

I set up our live animal trap started a regular feeding place and 2 weeks after catching the first two I caught 2 more and their mother. Their mother was caught in the cage at the same time as Hallie. Seeing her mother panic the Hallie was in a frenzy, and as I tried to get her from the trap she bit me, deep and hard. I put the kittens in a large dog crate with solid sides and the mother in another large dog crate next to them. Luckily I have two large dogs who usually sleep in these crates and did not mind donating for a few months.

The large male kitten all sinew on a very large frame (Moose) purred the first time I fed him. He was fairly relaxed after the 3rd feeding and was getting quite tame. The female Tortie (Hallie) however was a wild thing. She did not want to be picked up to be fed and she did not want me to practice approach and retreat with her (moving your hand toward them until they get alarmed and then stopping until they become comfortable and then moving off to reward the comfort. Eventually you can touch them. ) She was a tough thing.

The mother was unhappy but not deathly afraid, warning sounds would come from her when I approached. This is usually a sign of an abandoned cat not a born in the wild. I did some bold things with her including petting her when she had her back to me and growled away. Eventually I worked my way up to tickling her under the chin and she would turn and come out of the carrier to be petted. Unfortunately she would not let me approach walking (the walking human is the scariest human for feral cats) and even though she loved to be petted by me would not let anyone else pet her.

Even though the kittens were in pretty good shape, Mommas coat was staring and hard and the fur was dry and tough. She was rail thin and all sinew. After a few weeks of high quality food and an occasional canned tuna treat her coat came out in big handfuls and she filled in with sleek shiny fur and her ribs disappeared.

5 days after I caught the last two kittens and their mother I realized I had made a neophyte mistake and missed another kitten. When driving by my neighbors I was astounded to see a small dark fluffy kitten staring off up the hill where her mother would usually go to hunt, waiting for her mother to come home. Poor Katie climbed the top of the trap and hung on upside down sure she was going to die and desperate to escape. When I got her home and fed her, she could not believe her good fortune to find her brothers and sisters and she settled in and became a sweetie in practically a few days.

For a month I worked on taming up the kittens and their mother and then finally took them in for their shots and to get the mother spayed and tested.

I then started taking the three larger kittens to adoption day with a local rescue group. Adoption day was too much for them and poor Katie would pull up the carpet at the bottom of her cage to hide. Moose sat in the back of the cage and meowed and Hallie would hide her face in Mooses ample fur. Every Saturday for 2 months we went. I felt so bad for the kits. They were large now about 5 months, and past the time when most would call them kittens. Their shyness was a put off to most who wanted a cat that was friendly immediately. I tried to let people know that when they warmed up to you they were the friendly creatures that snuggled under the covers with me and sat in my lap while I worked on the computer.

An endless stream of people came to see them at my house through adds that were placed in the paper for them. However the minute a stranger showed up at the house "Poof" the only cats to be seen were my mothers 20 year old Pricilla or one of my 12 year old cats. People would ask to adopt one of "my cats" and I would turn them down. Some insulted me and asked what we had done to make the cats so scared. Some on hearing that they had been born outside stated they thought they should probably never be housepets and implied I should have them put down. Sometimes they would encounter Solomon and want to adopt him once again I would sigh and let them know he was not available.

Finally after about 3 months of this, I called the Director of the rescue group and told him to take the adds out of the paper, the bunch was staying here. He scolded me and told me if I only stuck with the program longer they would eventually all get adopted. I told him I was no longer willing to make them or myself unhappy. When I spoke to him the other day he let me know all of the others who had older kittens last year and stuck with the program did eventually get them adopted.

Its funny, the kittens still do not let me pick them up when they are outside. ( except Aud & Conan) They are still afraid they might be going to adoption day!

Momma cat now lives outside and still comes to our yard once in a while to be fed. When she does want to be fed she will stare in the sliding glass door at night and let me know she is there. She has not let me pet her since she escaped through an open door one day, but she does not run far away anymore when I approach. I am hopeful that one day she will come back in to the house.

And that is how I came upon Moose, Hallie, Katie, Conan & Audrey.

I chose Audrey to be Solomon's mate based on her extreme Oriental looks (I have been asked if she is a purebred) and her loving outgoing purrsinality.

We named Audrey for Audrey Hepburn for her delicate dark beauty.

Not knowing if Solomon's tail was truly heritable and not having any purebreds with known genetic backgrounds makes starting breeding difficult with out a leap of faith.

The Birth was easy for Audrey and she is an excellent mother. Unfortunately she has had several mishaps that have involved the vet and emergency treatment along the way. At just shy of 3 weeks old for the kittens, Audrey developed Mastitis in one of her nipples. We whisked her and her kits off to the emergency vets and spent most of the night there while everyone was tube fed and Audrey was put on Antibiotics. The next morning I could not get the kittens to nurse from bottles and I was exhausted and called my regular vet and took the bunch in to be fed and Aud to be checked out. My regular vet gave us the advice of supervised feedings, keeping the kits off of the affected nipple. She told me she thought I would lose kittens otherwise. It’s a lot of work to hand feed one kitten. Try it with 8 and you could never get any sleep.

Unfortunately Audrey decided she did not like supervised feedings. I also have my mother and brother staying with us and a door that had been closed somehow ended up open. When my husband and I stepped out for dinner that night, Audrey tried to extract one of the kittens from the carrier. I came home an hour later to the towel being pulled through the front bars of the carrier and the littlest girl kitten with a lacerated ear and leg. Off to the emergency vets again. Little Willow was stitched up and is doing fine, unfortunately she did lose half an ear.

For a few more weeks all seemed well. Then Audrey developed Diarrhea and vomited. We whisked her off to the vet where the diagnosed her with a possible Pyrometra (infected uterus). It was late in the day so we transferred her to the emergency clinic for an ultrasound and if confirmed an emergency spay. The ultrasound was inconclusive and upon inspection she had an Innociception(SP)( bowel wrapped inside out back on itself). The vet performed an emergency spay anyway and took out the affected part of her bowel as well as the lymph node nearby. We had the fluid from her abdomen, blood, the lymph node and the piece of bowel tested to see if there was any disease process. The test results point to the bowl causing everything else. She is now doing fine and back to her usual high-spirited self although she insists on eating chicken, tuna and all other get well cat food only.

No one could fault Audrey on her mothering instincts. Perhaps its because she was abandoned herself (we think she was taking care of Conan).

Along the way in the midst all of the medical treatment for Aud a rescue kitten "Cinnamon" was found at a construction site about 1.5 miles as the crow flies from here. Interestingly enough he is also a Tuxedo Cat (somehow all of the Tux's find me) and about 2 weeks older then the kits. After being tested for FIV/ FELV (negative) and being wormed he has been tossed in with the other kits and is now very tame. When he came he was a little larger then the rest and more agile. They are now surpassing him for size and he has helped them develop their motor skills.

Audrey did not mind one more kit to snuggle. As a matter of fact the whole time we had him separated in the beginning she kept trying to figure out how to get into the room we had him in (she heard him cry) and then how to get into the carrier. He was a little afraid of her at first, (mom is obviously not black) but was so happy to have a mom again. He follows her around and tries to give her a bath.

He sure stands out in the photos.

The picture above was taken the 16th of May. For comparison check out the morning after birth photo of Audrey & the babies taken on April 12. They sure grow fast huh?