I had an amazing experience, this morning. Amazing and nearly tragic. (kind of long)

[Siwsan]

Another cat brought her babies to one of my shelters. Then, one morning, she started moving them. I thought, well, that’s fine. Well, she moved them beneath the non-running John Deere lawn tractor. I know that sounds weird but she’s not the first to do that.

Flash forward to last night. Since we were due for rain, I tried to make sure that mama and her babies had a dry place to go, in case we got a drenching rain.

This morning I went out, between rain showers, to see if any of the ferals were around. I heard a LOUD distressed meow and saw 3 of the kittens, drenched to the bone. There was no sign of their mother. I grabbed them up and brought them inside. Then I went out to look for the 4th one - the ‘runt’ of the litter. I saw him and my heart sank. He was stretched out, not moving. I was sure he was dead. I picked him up, he was cold. I had to try, though, so I started briskly rubbing his belly, chest and back and within about a minute I saw movement. I rushed him inside, dried him off as best I could and then ran for the heating pad. He couldn’t hold up his head or move his legs. But he was breathing.

It took a while but between the heating pad and me holding him next to my heart, his core temperature went back up and he became much more active. I didn’t leave his side and constantly checked to make sure he was still breathing.

After about another hour I looked down and he was up and walking. He took in some milk and pate and then curled up with his siblings for some rest. (The siblings were all wet but other than that, just fine.)

I finally saw their mother and took one of the kittens out to her. She ignored it and the kitten ran, frantically meowing, back to me. I’ll put them out later this afternoon and watch to see what happens. Hopefully their mom will step up but if she doesn’t, they will be taken care of. Honestly, I can’t imagine why she abandoned them during that kind of weather!

Now I'm going to pour myself some fine Welsh whisky and cuddle with my indoor babies. They've been very patient with the situation.