Mor-mor 沫沫 likes kittens

A nursing cat and her four kittens have made themselves home at the back of my section.

Her nest was up on a bank against a retaining wall. We found the wee family when we were scouting an ingress route for some earthworks machines. She'll have to move.

She is very scared. I can only get so close before she runs away. She'll hide in the grass and growl warnings at me.

She chose a great spot: protected from the wind, a solar thermal mass behind her, dry ground and decent rain cover. There's been a lot of heavy machinery and power tools working just metres away so it must've been a stressful time for her.

I needed a head count: four kittens. Eyes open. All seem in good health. A post on the local Facebook page and a few hours of door knocking and I cannot locate the owners. I need to move the family before Monday and then look at trapping the skittish mother so I can take them to a rescue. I already have three names of people wanting the cat - but the rescue knows the procedure and can check for a microchip.

After feeding small but frequent meals, the skittish mother cat doesn't react badly to me going near the nest. I move the kittens into a lined box and relocate it against the house. It takes a few hours to get the mother cat to come to the new nest. Mor-mor loves the kittens and always wants to check on them. The mother cat isn't so sure that a Labrador is the best baby sitter and the two have a tense standoff.
The cat nest is located in an area Mor-mor can't normally get to but I did want to see how she was around kittens.

Anyways, the nest is covered with an umbrella for more weather protection. I hope the mum doesn't relocate the family back to the old nest.

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