Dear Kitten Fanciers,

While you may have heard rescues refer to “kitten season,” kittens are a part of every season at Tabby’s Place. At least that’s how it has seemed in recent years.

As we prepare to welcome in the New Year, our Tabby’s Place cup runneth over with kittens.

How can we handle so many little ones in need of rescue? We can only do this because of big hearts like yours!

In 2023, our circle of foster families grew and our three-person Foster Team kept track of all 127+ kittens and their assigned foster families.

Since I’m serving as your guest correspondent this month and have a unique view on kitten affairs at Tabby’s Place, I thought I might share a bit about the experience from the angle of a staff member.

For the time being, our smallest suite (Suite C), and the only one without access to a solarium, serves as our kitten room at Tabby’s Place. This room houses kittens that have completed their periods of quarantine and are up to date on all their tests and vaccinations. The maximum kitten occupancy for this particular room is ten kittens, a number that is rather overwhelming no matter the size of the space.

Our kittens come in every size, shape, and color palette. But every now and then, we get a few litters that are very difficult to tell apart from one another. Identification is particularly challenging when your subjects are in constant motion in both vertical and horizontal directions.

When you interact with the kittens every day, it becomes quite easy to tell them apart. However, when our youngest residents spend the first 4 to 6 weeks in a foster home, the staff do not get to know them all as individuals.

As of December 1, our kitten suite was filled with kittens of two patterns:  brown tabbies and black & white tuxedos. It is challenging enough to get an accurate headcount in a room of matching and moving kittens, but when one of the 6 tuxedos needs a dose of medicine and another one needs to be weighed, the task can seem overwhelming.

I always find great delight in kitten room challenges. Kittens love to play all the time. They don’t understand that the staff come in for important matters. The key, as a staff member, is to think of time in the kitten room as productive playtime. Embrace the fun and the chaos, and depart with a smile on your face.

In prior years, we have tried to color code our kittens with differently colored collars. The challenge here is twofold: kittens take off their safe little collars, and the room population is in constant flux. This year, the medical team has made a point to microchip our kittens before they go into the kitten room. We keep the last 4 digits of each kitten’s microchip number on the room list along with their names.

So, if you were to visit Tabby’s Place in the morning hours when the staff are completing medication rounds, you might see a staff member, surrounded by little kittens, repeatedly waving a small handheld device over each little ball of fur until one “lucky” kitten is scooped up.

The microchip scanner has been my most trusted tool when entering the kitten room this month. Granted, I may scan the same furball three times before identifying the one I am actually looking for, but if I approach the process with a sense of playfulness, it can be fun for all.

Speaking of fun, our “Fun Time” crew: Jamboree, Shenanigans, Hulabaloo, and Farva returned from their foster home and joined the kitten room. All but little Farva, who has one underdeveloped eye, have since been adopted. We are debating what to do about Farva’s bad eye since it seems to have continual discharge and is not providing sight. Our veterinarian is recommending an “enucleation” or removal of the eye. For the time being, we are monitoring the eye. All four kittens arrived at Tabby’s Place with “goopy eyes.” This is not uncommon for kittens.

Take little Fortune Cookie for example. When this little guy arrived, both of his eyes were red, swollen, and crusted. He went into a foster home where he received round-the-clock care with warm compresses and eye salve. Our lucky little cookie is indeed fortunate to have found his way to Tabby’s Place, as he has tested positive for feline leukemia virus (FeLV). Now that his eyes are all better, he hopes to find a forever home of his own. While he won’t be able to join with friends in the kitten room, he may soon be able to frolic in Quinn’s Corner.

Thank you for making the lives of so many little ones full of sugar plums and fortune cookies this year! Wishing you a beautiful holiday season and a joyous New Year!

Your guest correspondent,
Lisa