Friday, July 21, 2006

Two New Arrivals

About five weeks ago, Adam’s family cat gave birth to what became a litter of three kittens. At the same time, a stray cat gave birth to a litter of equal size beneath Adam’s shed. Suddenly they had a huge surplus of little kittens at Adam’s house. (They also had a Golden Lab pup to go along with four kids aged 9 to 15—including twins! Talk about crowded.) Hearing him talk about the kittens’ progress nearly every day, got me to thinking—always a dangerous thing.

To make a long story short, I took two of the little ones home with me. One came from each litter. (They both came from the same litter and are, therefore, brother and sister. Their mom is Adam's family cat.) One is almost totally black but has a white cross on its chest and a patch of white at the groin. The other is a gray and black tiger with a white chin and white rings around both eyes.

Two new additions

The black has been dubbed "Shadow" but I haven't decided upon a name for the tiger yet. (Part of that is due to my uncertainty as to either critter's sex. That's somewhat embarassing for me to admit. After all, I had to sex mice much, much smaller than these little ones when I worked on my Master's Degree.)

Update: Shadow's little partner has officially been dubbed "Chester" or Chet for for short. (Shadow is a little girl. One of each. We will definitely be paying a visit to the vet in the near future to ensure we have no population explosion at the Aerie.)

2 comments:

Jess said...

*sigh*

That's cats for ya. They never bloody want to look at the camera. *rolls eyes*

Gun Trash said...

Cats. I don't understand the appeal of the darned things and we've got five of 'em here, plus we feed a part-timer that comes up off the river about every other day. You never "own" a cat like you do a dog but you do grow fond of 'em for some reason or another. They're good to have around for keeping undesireables out of the yard and buildings. But they don't seem to understand that robins, cardinals, finches, and doves aren't in that category. :-\