ARGH!!! A Day In My Life.

I had such a mad day yesterday and I really need to vent. It started a little before 9am Friday when I got to work and found a cat, Misty, was giving birth and had chosen her litter tray to do it! She already had two kittens and had cleaned them up but she hadn't broken their umbilical cords which wouldn't have been so bad if the afterbirths weren't covered in cat litter! Firstly my colleague Jenni and I had to get them out of the tray, not so easy with an already protective mother, then I had to handle the very gooey mess of kittens, afterbirths and cat litter. Once in a bed we had to clamp the cords and cut them off. An hour later she had had two more and fortunately looked after them a bit better. All this caused us to be late with our usual duties and we had appointments booked for the afternoon and just the two of us to deal with it. After an interrupted and rushed late lunch we had to catch up quickly with giving vaccinations and chipping all the while answering the door and dealing with calls. At about 2.30 we were almost done when a woman brought a cat to the door - now we had nowhere to put it but the woman wouldn't take the cat away so we had no choice but to admit the poor cat we named Sushi. The problem is we are completely full up with up to six cats in one (large)pen, not to mention two of our three kitchens being used and now, due to Sushi, we had to use an office too - not good. Then disaster; we realised Misty and her kittens had to be moved as they were born in one of our outside pens and couldn't get to the heated section where her partner, Felix, was! Luckily we were having a kitten adopted which would free up a pen so we had to have a quick change around bringing Misty, Felix and the kittens indoor. During the move the washing machine repair guys decided to finally turn up and supervised by Shelford (our resident cat) they proceeded to pull the washing machine apart - eek! At this point everytime I thought of what still needed to be done I added new things to the list. Taking a few deep breaths I carried on and eventually managed everything with out stopping, my mind was buzzing so much I had to concentrate hard to think clearly but we were done. Phew!

At home I was greeted by the smell of my dad's cooking - I could tell it was his cooking as there's a distinctive aroma of things we don't usually cook with along side very minimal seasoning. It was minced turkey and Ebly on pasta, needless to say I only ate the pasta which was fortunate as understandably the Ebly was out of date by a few months. Everyone seems ok today though Bailey (the dog) did have bright yellow poo this morning.

Later on I went into my garden to find Honey(bunny) had escaped! After using the cats (Tamba, Max and Smudge) to herd her I managed to get her back into her run and only got a few scratches for my efforts. The trouble was after letting them out of their hutch this morning it wasn't long before Honey got out twice more so I had to shut them in their smaller enclosed run while I had a few bits to get down the town. When I finally got home I modified their outer run and it's now like Fort Knox, with one very unhappy bunny and two very pleased bunnies as they have slightly more space than they did before.

Going back a step, I had to go into the town as it's my younger sisters' birthday tomorrow (yep, they're twins) on my way down (about a 20min walk) I got a call from work; a man was trying to leave two young cats and Jenni couldn't get through to anyone else. We made the decision to admit the cats but that means they have to go in a large nursery pen, not good.

So tomorrow I look forward to another crazy day, a colleague is leaving, I'm training up two volunteers and we're having issues with another member of staff all the while having to care for the cats and kittens. Wish me luck...

Keeping It In The Family

My little sis is finally moving out so she made me reserve her any kittens born at the cattery in the last few weeks so she can give them a new home once she's settled in. Two and a half weeks ago Daphne gave birth to two boys and they're already huge. What's more, Liz and her boyfriend Mark have fallen in love with Daphne so they're taking the three of them! The downside is Liz wants to give them crappy names - Rosie, Alvin and Theo - but at least they'll all be together. She does need to have a home visit, which she isn't too happy about, but from what I've seen so far the place looks safe and secure.

In other pet news I took my young buns to be neutered on Tuesday and what a palaver that was! Getting them there was no problem, my vet wants them there at 10ish, as there was a few people already in the waiting room I left them with the receptionist and went home expecting a call around 2pm. They're usually so quiet everything's done nice and early so I figured I'd have time to keep an eye on them after their ops and settle them home ok - how wrong was I! At 4 pm I still hadn't received a call so I called the receptionist who said they probably be done in half and hour and would call, by this time my mum, my lift, had to go out so I had to call my sister who had my car and ask her to pick them up when she finished work at 5pm. The only thing was they still weren't ready at 5pm so she had to wait another half hour. Then when they were finally home they were still very wobbly so I had to set them up in my room for the night - that was fun! I've got an indoor pen for emergencies which I set up in the corner and everytime I got up (it was a hot night) they got spooked and thumped. Tilly liked the company though, lol. Now all's fine and you wouldn't know anything had happened.

Animals! Who'd have 'em?!