A Little Nervous...

by Schuyler

4 weeks ago, I moved to a new house out in the country. The man who lived here before, left us his 4 cats. At the time, one of them was pregnant (Lydia). All 4 of the cats are barn cats, they stay in the garage when it rains, and come to the deck for food periodically throughout the day.

Lydia is definitely the most friendly one, she'll sit in your lap and take a nap when you're outside, and she'll come when you call her. She's a very sweet girl.

About a week into being here, she had her kittens. A couple days later, we went out into the garage to check on her and the kittens, and all of the cats were dead. They had been born in the rafters of the garage and one had been pushed onto the floor. It's head had been eaten off. The other 4 kittens were in the rafters in the same condition, head chewed off.

I figured it was the tom cat who lives here. So he was...dispatched. He was a very mean cat, and I can't have a kitten-eater here anyway. Lydia was really friendly and needy until her milk dried up and then she started acting like...well, a cat. She has her own agenda and she might pencil you in if you feed her the right treats.

Well, this last past week, there's been several tomcats roaming around the fields beside our house. So naturally, I assumed Lydia was in heat. So, I'm going to keep checking her out every day to see if she's pregnant. If she's pregnant, I'd like to make sure we do this pregnancy the right way.

I can't bring her inside since I have 4 male cats that live inside. But, I want to make sure she feels comfortable enough around me to let me see her kittens, and maybe even be there when she has them.

If she's just a bad mother and won't be able to take care of her kittens, I'd like to know that. So, what should I do? How do I make sure she's familiarized enough with me to let me be around her and the kittens?

Any suggestions, email me at skygirl6227@gmail.com