missing kittens

Monday the cat had NINE kittens. The kids were here for an all day visit when it happened. We got home about 8 in the morning and I saw Rocky the Cat beside the house, super huge pregnant. She had disappeared for a few days again.

She is a wild cat, living under the houses on the block with 20 or so other wild cats. This was the first time that Roxanne and Bubba were here to see her. She came right in.

After a short while she started acting uncomfortable and howling. I told the kids that she was probably getting ready to have her kittens. A bit later Roxie came into my room worried cause "Rocky peed on the bed". Actually she probably did not say Rocky at this point. She chose the name Rocky for the cat that day, maybe later.

Cat went under the bed, I told the kids to leave her alone there, she was getting ready. Then Roxie ran up crying, "there is a baby hanging out..". Mama was walking with a baby hanging out of her.

The next few hours Rocky the cat was under the day bed in the living room squirting out kittens.

Roxie came up with the idea of rubbing a towel all over the mother to get her scent on it; to use to move the babies when the time came, see. I told her that this was an excellent idea, I had not thought of that.

So. Late in the day we moved the day bed away to discover that NINE kittens had come out of this one small mama cat. We cut up a box to make a nice door into a cozy dark cardboard cave and scooped the kittens up with the nicely smelly cat towel and scooped them into the cardboard cave. Rocky the cat liked it.

Roxanne and Bubba were worried about one kitty who was not moving much. I did not think that all of them would survive but did not want to talk about that. We scooped up the wayward kitty and deposited him upon the pile of kittens nuzzling up to mama.

Took the kids back at 6:30, everyone happy about the productive day.

Tuesday I found one sad little cold kitty corpse put outside the cardboard cage. I took him out into the field for burial, worried about how the kids would take this. 8 kittens tuesday night.

Wednesday after school I picked the kids up for a few hours. We rushed home to see the kittens. Reluctantly I told them that I'd had to bury one the previous day. When we got home there was another silent one inside the cat cave. Roxie picked it up and we buried it in the field. I told her that there were too many for such a small cat and that some of them were surely not going to survive.

One more kitten seemed to disappear the next day and one body was ejected. I was confused about this because there was a missing body. I am sure that 3 kittens were buried in the field but only 5 kittens were feeding. There was a huge pile in the litter box (set up wednesday after we bought more cat food and some litter) that I threw out.

I did not investigate this strange "too large for poop" thing in the litter box but now I wish I had.

On friday there were four kittens feeding. One more sad package had to go to the field. I peeked into the cat cave friday night and saw Rocky lying there nursing. I did not open up the box to count kittens.

Saturday morning, up at 3:30 to go drive the taxi on French Quarter fest day. Home at noon for a nap. After waking up at 3pm Rocky the cat was walking around the house crying. I pet her, wondering what she was talking about. Then I looked in the cardboard cave. No kittens at all.

I searched all over the house looking for where she might have moved them to. Nothing, no mewling kittens anywhere. Mama the Rocky cat just acts puzzled. Then I thought about that strange large thing in the litter box. Was it vomit? Must have been something vomited up, way too big for poop.

With dread I searched for "do house cats eat their babies?". Some people assert that this has happened.

There are no mewling kittens anywhere in the house and four kittens have disappeared from the face of the earth.

Big mystery. I dread this discussion on Sunday when I have the kids for a visit.