Kitty Koral

This is Momma Kitty, kat #1 of 5 in the household pecking order. She used to be kat #2, but moved up when matriarch Lucky Kitty passed on to Katnip Heaven.
She is the momma of Spot (aka Buster), Bandit (aka Bubba), Fluffy (aka Fuzz Butt), and Blossom. The two girls, Fluffy and Blossom look like their Dad, Pappa Kitty, who passed on when they were just semi-ferel kittens. I'll have to dig up a picture of him. The two boys look like one of the strays that was passing through that season...

Several years ago when we had bought a home about 40 miles from here, Momma Kitty came with the territory and hung around the house. She didn't seem to belong to anyone, but we already had two cats, Lucky and Mozart, and didn't really want her around. Well, unbeknownst to us (we weren't really paying much attention) and as happens to cats when no one cares for them, Momma Kitty got pregnant. In October or November of 2000, I think it was (maybe 1999, I don't know for sure), during a very rainy day, Kandy saw little kittens running along side the house looking for shelter from the weather. Later we saw Momma Kitty carrying them under some bushes.

( This is Blossom, kitt #5 of 5 - the runt ---> )
Oi. So what do we do now? Crazy that we are, we got a humane trap from the vet's office and proceeded to trap all the cats, one by one. It took several days and nights. The kittens turned out to be somewhere between 8 and 10 weeks old, all pretty healthy, but terrified of us. Fortunately, there is a Feral Cat Program in that county where participating veterinarians will spay or neuter ferel cats, and clip one ear to signify that they've had the surgery, then they can be re-released. We took advantage of this program, and then rather than release them back outside, we tried to adopt them out.

No one would take them. Then the girls got pretty attached to them - although the kittens didn't really attach themselves to any of us. I guess they went too long without human contact - and ever since it has been a struggle for them. Being semi-ferel means that they don't really crave human laps or petting. Oh, now and then Fuzz Butt will go around my legs if she's hungry, but none of them will let us pick them up and love on them. They all have varying tolerances for being petted. Spot is the most progressive in this way - he has become "my" cat, as he is the only one that will sleep on the bed at night, and actually want to be petted. Of the cats, Bandit is too conflicted, Blossom lives out in the garage and only allows me and Kandy to pet her when she feels like it. She lives out there because she gets picked on by her brothers and sister and so couldn't be with her siblings in the house. I guess she is the runt of the litter, and thus #5 of 5 in the pecking order. Fuzz Butt stays just out of reach. She's soooo cute and her furr is so soft that you just want to reach down and grab her. Good luck! She's very adept at keeping at just the right distance of escape.

Last, but certainly not least, here is Fluffy (aka Fuzz Butt). She is cat #4 of 5 in the Kitty Koral Pecking order. That does it. That's all of them. That's more than enough!