AFTER DEALING with the three kittens that were given to me between Ramadhan and Eid (remember Hazeem, Tali and Munya?), Kitzania welcomed a litter of four kittens by Borsa the only unneutered cat in the colony.
They were three black females and one ginger male, all as wild as their mom. The problem with Borsa having kittens is her increased aggression towards other cats.
To her, every Kitzanian is a threat and deserves to be attacked just for passing by her litter.
Also, her hunting instinct forces her to bring dates from the neighbor’s palm tree to feed them.
The dates are dropped on the ground and ignored by her lot who choose to eat rice and chicken like the rest of the cats; later it gets squashed by our feet as we fail to see it.
A week before Eid Al Adha, I was awakened at 6 a.m. by the sound of a lone kitten meowing. At first, I thought it was one of Borsa’s but when I didn’t hear her meow back, I thought that the kitten was somehow separated from her and went outside to check.
Of course, this was a new black and white kitten that was barely a month old. He was dumped as there was no mother accompanying him. I decided to call him Badri (early in Arabic) and had to keep him in a carrier for almost a month because he was suffering from malnutrition and had to be fed at constant intervals until he gained weight and strength.
Later, I introduced him to Hazeem & Co who at first treated him as a toy but then as a follow kitten after a few weeks. And just when I thought that the kitten season was over, I was hit once again the following month with a batch of three one-month-old ones that were left at my doorstep at 1:30 a.m.
They were with a bad eye infection, stinking of garbage, and super hard to catch! Half an hour later running after them in the garden, I managed to catch and gather them all in my pajamas shirt and throw them inside the bathroom with some food and water before going back to sleep.
In the morning I went to check on them and was welcomed again by the strong garbage stink that made me give them a quick bath and book an appointment with the vet to get them checked.
All three were females and I decided to call them the Jay sisters (as they arrived in July) and gave them names accordingly: Jala, Jaida, and Julnar. Julnar was the smallest and the weakest of the litter. Here eye infection was the worst as all you could see were two bloody spots where the eyes were. She couldn’t see and her head hung low. She kept bumping into things and her case wasn’t too hopeful. Luckily, the infection cleared up within a month leaving her with one eye that she
could see from but not so clearly.
It was time to kick the sisters out of the bathroom and introduce them to the rest of the kittens. After a month of quietness, I woke up to find a new kitten who joined the existing 11! This time it was a 3-month-old tabby that Sham brought from the supermarket because she looked so cute!
He even puts a collar on her to announce that she’s staying. I called her Lina and it took her only a day to get used to the rest of the kittens.
Welcome all to the
realm of Kitzania!
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