The six creamsicle kittens trapped a few weeks ago in Avondale are thriving in Robin’s home. We are so thankful to her for fostering and socializing these boys!
And keeping track of all of them. She keeps sending us photos, but they look so much alike. Bert and Ernie are mostly white with orange fur.
And then there’s the rest of the boys, who are mostly orange, with some white fur – Bosco, Oscar, Phoenix and Rascal.
These kittens are living the life. As of yesterday, Joann also now has Bert and Ernie to help with socialization. Their next appointment is at PAWS Chicago next Thursday.
Back in June we met the owner of a Polish restaurant in Avondale feeding three feral female cats. They would wait outside the back door in the alley for their meals.
We are calling this the Polska Kittens Colony. It is the next alley over from the Big Daddy Colony.
She fed them raw ground beef from her restaurant. We have donated beef wet cat food to her since.She said they all just had kittens.
We soon saw what she was talking about.
This mama cat was moving the kittens from the garage to a basement accessible from the outdoors, and back again.
We talked to the owner of the basement as well, who owns a grocery store. The owners of the garage were not available. Other neighbors told us that these feline families were being moved all around by the mama cats and disrupted by kids and drunk men in the alley, that they didn’t have a clear idea of how many kittens there were, or who had them. This alley is BUSY with lots of traffic and people.
We decided to let everyone be, and that Barbara, the owner of the restaurant, should call us when the kittens come out to be fed after they are weaned.
So about six weeks later in July, Barbara called on a Friday and said she saw kittens running around outside of the garage.
Joann went there immediately and first trapped the last female cat that we knew about from the Big Daddy Colony. Esther was pregnant and TNReturned. We couldn’t believe she was already pregnant – we had trapped her kittens in June, which were all admitted to PAWS Chicago. Here’s Esther, the mama of some of the orange creamsicle kittens. She is the 28th cat trapped from that alley this summer.
Then Joann and Kim trapped all three lactating mama female cats and six little kittens at the Polish restaurant.
Here’s Abby the Tabby.
Sterling.
And Tabitha, the star of the video moving all of the kittens around.
These mama cats were kept for recovery for a few extra days in Kim’s laundry room.
They also trapped six kittens: Harley, Jordan, Payton, Penelope, Poe, and Shakespeare. We guessed they were from 2-3 litters because of their sizes. It’s really hard to tell when you are not the one who is feeding the cats yourself, or have a set location for the colony. The kittens were trapped, three to a trap.
Kim and Elissa started socializing and fostering them.
One of the black kittens had this gummy gunk all over his side. It has since been combed out. Who knows what the heck they were getting into in that garage!
Some of the kittens were quickly ready for their close-ups!
Then on Monday, Joann got a call from Barbara saying she found another kitten. Joann went to trap him immediately. Kitten #7, Lucky Johnny, was absolutely frantic, meowing his head off after being alone all weekend.
Long-time supporter, Kati E., donated and sponsored his care. Thank you, Kati!
All seven of these kittens are being fostered currently by Kim, and went to PAWS Chicago for their first round of vaccinations on Monday. They will be admitted for adoption in August. They are currently being fostered by Elissa.Then, on Wednesday of this week, Joann got ANOTHER call from Barbara about two more kittens there. Joann again went to trap immediately, and got THREE more kittens.
Meet Rutabega, Radish and Turnip. All three of them were at PAWS today for their first vet appointment, and will also be admitted to PAWS Chicago’s adoption program in August.
We think we now have all of the kittens, but Barbara will call us if she sees more or other intact cats. We have now trapped 38 cats and kittens from the Avondale TNR Project in tow alleys. Almost half of these cats will be admitted to PAWS Chicago and adopted into indoor homes, rather than living on the streets. If you’d like to help us traps cats, foster or make a donation, please call us at 773-609-2287. Thank you!
I’m happy to report that four of the orange creamsicle kittens were admitted to PAWS Chicago’s adoption program!
Phoenix, Rascal, Oscar and Bosco all graduated from Robin’s Fischer School of Feral Feline Socialization. Robin has been fostering kittens for us for awhile now and we are so grateful to her. This couldn’t be done without her.
Check out these boys! Yes, these are four separate kittens, we promise. They just still look a lot alike, but their separate personalities are really starting to shine.
Bert and Ernie still require more socialization. Joann now has them in her house and has been working with them daily. Please contact us if you’d like to meet them – the more people that interact with them, the better! They are handsome twin boys that are still nervous about their surroundings, but they play and purr once you get to know them.
We brought the kittens from the Avondale TNR Project to PAWS Chicago for their second round of vaccinations. They ended up needing a little more vetting than that.
These kittens are hilarious. Robin has been fostering them and keeping track of their shenanigans. She sent us photos, and I couldn’t tell them apart. I was convinced she was sending me photos of the same two kittens, when in fact there’s six of them. They stayed with me the other night in my bathroom because we had to drive them to PAWS for their vet appointment the next day.
When you see them in person, then it makes more sense. There are some true look-alikes in there. Also, they’re hard to keep track of and rarely stop moving, in true kitten fashion. Robin said that when they run they look and sound like “a herd of stampeding orange elephants.”
Yes, there’s five kittens in there. The sixth orange one was who knows where at this point.
Some of the kittens are more relaxed than others, and they started posing for close-ups.
Some are more fearful than others, like this tiny little guy, but it really depends on what situation they’re in. Robin has been working really hard on socializing them.
Basically there are two litters, and the older, larger litter is more social at this point.
In the car and carriers somehow they are even more hard to keep track of. The orange ones were all over the place. It was like an orange kitten convention.
The creamsicle kittens were more photogenic this time.
Joann and I took them to PAWS where they determined that all six kittens are boys! They received their second round of vaccinations, and saw they were starting to get URI, upper respiratory infections. They sent them all home with two weeks worth of doxycycline. They are back with Robin who is busy socializing them more and administering the meds daily for each of them. She is amazing!
Every cat in a trap here has a story that deserves to be shared and celebrated, which is pretty much why I started this blog in the first place. Here are their stories:
From left to right, top to bottom:
FIRST ROW, left to right:
Ferret, from the Jose and the Pussycats Colony, TNR’d in February 2012, and still feral and thriving outdoors. She has a cat bed outdoors with fresh, clean blankets every day.
Frostie MacCreamsicle, also from the Jose and the Pussycats Colony, TNR’d in March 2012. He is friendly so I fostered him and he was adopted by my friends, Eliya and Mary.
Whip, the orange cat, is from the Boonie Colony, TNR’d in March 2015. We have not seen him since he was TNReturned outside, but he comes from a very large colony that is fed daily by a feeder who lets the cats in and out of his basement.
I trapped this tabby cat from the Eleanor Rigby Colony in March 2015. I let him go right away – he was already ear tipped but I don’t know who originally TNR’d him. There are multiple feeders on every block in this area.
SECOND ROW, left to right:
Wally, the black cat, from the V Colony, was TNR’d in May 2014. He was very friendly and very sick – the first vet I took him to advised me to euthanize him. I took him to another vet for a second opinion. He tested positive for FeLV, then reversed the test results, and was adopted by my friends Carlin and Kathy in St. Louis. Now over a year later he is still very much alive and thriving in their home.
Garfield, the long-haired orange cat from the Armando Colony, was TNR’d in December 2014. I still see him periodically when I visit.
Mala, the black cat, also from the Armando Colony, was TNR’d in December 2014. She was very feral and also returned to Armando’s house once she recovered from her surgery.
Cosmo Moon Eyes, this black and white cat from the Peacock Colony, was TNR’d in August 2014. He is still around and being fed according to his feeder, Ashley, a young girl in junior high who learned all about TNR from this process.
THIRD ROW, left to right:
Mr. Friendly, the brown tabby and white cat from the Rockstar Colony, definitely lived up to his name. He was TNR’d in February 2012 and his feeders wanted to keep him as an indoor/outdoor cat. He was still thriving later that year and I would see him periodically throughout the neighborhood. Unfortunately the following year he was killed by a car. My rescue neighbor and friend Kim found him and gave him a proper burial as he deserved. RIP Mr. Friendly.
None, the grey cat, was the first to be TNR’d from the Chester Colony in March 2015.
Joann tried to foster her indoors for a bit, but None turned out to be feral and was ultimately returned outside. Their feeder Chester feeds daily and they have shelter in this garage.
Popcorn, the brown and white tabby from the front yard of my very own colony, James Gang Colony, was TNR’d in September 2014. I named him Popcorn because he kept trying to pop out of the trap and made a mess inside the entire time. He is feral and still visits my front yard feeding station at night, although I have no idea where he goes otherwise.
Apple, also from the Chester Colony, was about five months old when we trapped her and her sister Ava in March 2015. Joann could not bear to put them back outside without trying to socialize them first. She ended up keeping both of these sisters where they are living their lives indoors with her and her other five pet cats.
We can’t wait to get these calendars to distribute as gifts for the holidays!
Adorable!