Here are a couple of pictures of the kittens. It's a little hard getting decent pictures of them since they are so wild and we have to look at them through a window in an adjacent building.
We shall see how this turns out. She moved them from where we first saw them and then we didn't see them for a full day. Then today, Teresa heard them in the hay barn next to our garden shed but the mom was nowhere to be found. They have food and water in there so assuming she comes back she is small enough to get in under the door but Puddy doesn't fit under it. We heard a cat fight the other night so presumably it was those two.
Our garden beds are doing great and the soil is also in great condition. I had composted literally a ton of leaves along with about that much sheep manure so the beds are fertile and easy to work compared to the rock and clay we first started with.
That’s great on the cucumbers and tomatoes, YAY for Teresa and her row covers! Your raised beds are doing great too. You have rock, we have white sand. Amazing what sheep manure can do!
We really need to clean out the sheep barn. During our crazy snow/ice, MINUS degree cold weather we had, I threw down lots of hay for the newborn lambs to snuggle in. Then came the rains, we need some dry weather so we can clean it out!
I unintentionally almost caused a food fight between Mel and Maisy this morning. I normally stay with them until they quit eating but they were almost done and I wanted to move a water trough and move the breeder herd to another paddock. I got that done and as I headed out saw that the lambs and the dogs had followed me to the other end of the paddock so I went around the lane to pick up the dogs bowls which still had quite a bit of food in both. About the time I was ready to pull away, here comes the dogs. I put the bowls back in for them and they started eating away. As Maisy finished up she noticed Mel was still eating and you could tell she was getting ready to go after him since he was eating out of one of her bowls. He wasn't but our routine is I put Mel's dog bowl in a bucket so he doesn't have to lean over so far to eat and Maisy likes to lay down by her bowl.
What happened when I got the food and put it back down for them, I didn't put Mel's bowl in a bucket which Maisy never reacts to since she knows from our habit that a bowl in a bucket belongs to Mel and a bowl on the ground belongs to her which is why she was going to attack Mel.
We haven't seen any sign of the kittens Mom since she parked them in the hay barn so we put a security camera out there and finally saw her this afternoon. I don't know how cat's think but I guess she figured they were getting plenty of food so she just came in to let them nurse once then jumped out of the barn.
It turns out that the skunk encounter Maisy had awhile back was more than just a passing thing. I was out trimming along the interior fence and came across a skunk carcass so evidently she made it pay.
Dont mess with eating order! Food is a serious thing. Sentry is food aggressive. For the longest, he’d eat all his, then want Sheba’s. I sit with them like you do Mel and Maoist. Recently Sheba has started defending her food after Sentry eats then comes to me for petting. Then she extended that snarling face to “That’s MY Mommy!”
LOL LOL
The Momma cat moved her kittens some time during the day and I saw her where we first saw the kittens when I was going out to feed this evening. About two hours later Teresa got an alert from one of the cameras in the barn and the kittens are all back in there again along with the Mom. I guess we will see where they wind up when they are grown up.