At all.
In fact, it was a tiny little calico face, with a dark colored nose (a marking quite like Cyrano's). A face, I might suggest, that was roughly the same size as Beatrice's.
A kitten.
Little Grey Girl appeared, then, from the drainage tunnel beside the one I was so intently peering into, and nonchalantly sat down in front of the calico-kitten, blocking her from my view. I, however, was patient, and eventually LGG moved inside the tunnel, revealing not only the Calico-Kitten but a Fluffy Grey Tabby Kitten as well. (Fluffy Grey looks like Beatrice, but, well, fluffier.)
Crap. Don't get me wrong-- I'm really glad that the rest of the litter survived (at least in part.) But this does mean more work for me, if I can catch them. (And, flat out, more work in trying to catch them!)I couldn't get any pictures of the Fluffy Grey Kitten, but you can see her eyes glowing in the background of the Calico Kitten pictures.
(Frankly, there aren't any great pictures of the kitten here. My camera just isn't good enough.) You can see their pictures, and a few more of Little Grey Girl (who posed like crazy for me today!), as well as one of Barnaby and one of Mr Mistoffolees, here at the Project-Cat Flickr Set (part 2.)I've read that after 8 weeks you really can't tame feral kittens. Is this true? I hope not-- these kittens are probably about 7 or 8 weeks already (if they are, indeed, from the same litter as Beatrice.)
It depends on the kitten and how much you can do to tame them. The window generally closes by about twelve weeks. By eight weeks they'll likely be feral by default. Between those two, you have to work to socialize them (a kitten much younger than eight weeks will socialize to humans fairly quickly).
ReplyDeleteMy Fred, Jessie, and Mia were over twelve weeks when I caught them, and I didn't have the time to devote to taming them that I would have needed. They're okay with me, but they're still spooky and they don't like strangers.
Ten, on the other hand, was three years old before I made her a housecat, and these days you couldn't tell her from any other cat, though that took about a year on her part.
Her brother, Orpheus, can be affectionate in his own way, but he's still a semi-feral, and at ten years of age, always will be.
If you can catch them soon and devote some time to brainwashing them, they'll be fine. Good luck.
And then there's cats like Widget, who have *always* been around humans, but still acts *almost* feral. :)
ReplyDeleteI'll do my best to catch 'em and see what happens. Fingers crossed.
::brainwash, brainwash::