If I sound incoherent, please forgive me, as English is not my first language and I don’t post on Reddit much.
So, maybe about a week ago, my mother woke me up with her “Ohhhhhh,” and I went to see that a cat had given birth to 4 kittens in our washing machine, in which we put all our laundry. My mother is extremely allergic to cats, her whole body gets very itchy and she gets agitated(I don’t know the right word but she gets nauseous and irritated and nervous). The kittens were on my shirt, so I picked the whole shirt up and put them in the lowest portion of a cabinet we have in the back veranda of the house, on a soft cloth that I spread for them.
The cat came and was there for like a day but then she moved them somewhere, I don’t know where. This kind of made me sad. I have never been a cat person but handling and seeing those little cuties all of a sudden made me obsessed with cats and kittens. So, I prayed they were safe but I also wanted to see them again.
After 2,3 days, she came back and put the kittens under the bed on the carpet and my mother immediately asked me to take them outside. So, I kind of made a little space for them. Three walls were put up, and a tarp was put over the walls and clothes on the ground, where there was constant shade throughout the day. I also secretly fed the cat chicken and water. I can’t afford cat feed, so I whenver chicken is cooked, I give it to her and always cool fresh water as it almost gets 104 degrees in the day here. She remained in the shelter for 3 days and as we had closed the bedrooms, she moved to the upper room, which is our storage underneath the storage container. She has been there for 2 days and I give her small amounts of chicken and water multiple times a day.
I wanted to ask what else I can do for her?
Some important context, as the post is getting too long, my bad.
- I live in a very small settlement of barely 10-12 houses in a third-world country and the city is almost a 1.5-hour drive away. A country where there isn’t much infrastructure at all for pet care or animal care.
- The cat has been around for almost I think 2 years but she runs away when you get close to her. We feed her table scraps often and she also sneaks into the kitchen to get into food items. But almost everyone in this settlement shoos her away.
- While researching how to take care of her, I found out that cats shouldn’t be given milk. Tom and Jerry really misled me. But she sneaks into the kitchen and gets into bread by tearing the wrapper and just a few days ago got into the milk skin my mother was using to make butter, I think. So, those items should be hidden? Or is she lactose-tolerant?
- She doesn’t eat food in my presence but she eats it while I’m out of line of sight.
- Used to hiss when I got close to her kittens or just run away, leaving the kitten.
- GOOD NEWS is that I finally got her to trust me a little. I wore cotton gloves to avoid bites and took a ruler and put a little chicken on it and got close to her. At first, she tried to run away but I kept sitting, slowly blinking and turning away from her. She didn’t eat the chicken from my hand but she sat back down with her side towards me and let me pet her with the ruler. She even let me pet her kittens with the ruler. I also petted her kittens with my hand. I FEEEEEL SO HAPPPY THAT SHE LET ME DO THAT. I kept petting her for solid 20-25 mins. What more can I do to make her trust me?
- I also read Reddit cat and kitten guides while sitting with my side to her to make her accustomed to my voice. And I once stimulated the kittens to pee cause the cat wasn’t there for quite some time, and I was afraid she had abandoned them but she came back(this happened before the ruler petting).
- I added a video where they are now under the storage unit. I can’t get to them there as they are too far away to reach. Apologies for the video quality my main back camera doesn’t work. It’s in ultrawide lens and picture in ultrawide aren’t clear at all.