On March 31st Emily showed up for a meal slimmer than the day before. I figured that she had given birth as a kitten the night before and finally found the kittens behind some bushes out back. There were six and three were dead. Three were barely alive and one was trying to nurse dirt. Emily was not nursing. I did good burial detail as an old Marine but before that worked liked hell on the newborn who was nursing dirt. I cleaned out the nose and mouth but knew I was shoveling shit against Mom Nature's tide. I laid the three newborns into one of the cat condos and figured to come out next morning to dispose of three more dead kittens after they had died in at least a warm comfortable place out of the dirt.
Ginger gave birth that night and for some reason decided to do that deal in the cat condo with the three dying kittens from her sister Emily. She had four kittens. The pure white one must have been born dead as it was pushed off to the side as a mess with the placenta and blood still upon it. What did I find?
I found Ginger in the morning rolled up in a ball nursing six kittens tucked into her belly - her three survivors and Emily's three survivors.
Within a day Emily was nursing the six kittens too as co-mother. Another day and all 8 kittens were gone. Ginger and Emily took them one by one or two by two underneath the deck.
First beast out to see the world out of nursing dirt on her first day of life near dead? It was the tiny Slash. I think she wanted to live.