Trying to Foster Mom Cat & Kittens -- Need Advice
 

In Jan 2013, my parents discovered a mother cat and her 4 kittens in the workshed of their house. The mother cat was very sociable and allowed us to view the kittens and even handling them. The very strange thing is that of all the houses to pick, the mother cat picked my parents' house where there is an indoor dog. {sweat}

Anyway, my sister and I have convinced my parents to foster the kitty family for the time being. There was talk of waiting until the kittens are weaned and then relocating them back on the streets. Eventually, there's talk of adopting one. ;) Now we MIGHT be able to convince them to adopt two.

However, as much as we would like, there is no way that we will be able to adopt the entire family... so my sister and I are researching the best ways to foster the cats... and hope that we're able to find new homes for them before my parents decide it's time to "kick them out".

Ideally, I would love to get all of them dewormed, deflead, vaccinated and spayed, and happily re-homed.

I'm not sure I can -- cost is my main concern, as I'm currently unemployed right now -- but I'd really like to try. (If we can get them adopted with a new family who's willing to handle the health costs, that's the best case scenario {happy} )

So, right now...the kittens are just shy of two months old. They're starting to share mom's food, but they are still nursing. We're able to take the kittens away from the mom a few hours at a time, usually two-at-time, to allow them to socialize with each other around humans (and the dog, in the case of the kittens we're planning to adopt--slooow process, but promising!). Returning the kittens back to the mom usually involves an unconcerned look by the mom and then a cleaning/nursing session.

Right now I'm trying to figure out how best to get their health checked out...maybe vaccinations/deworming/just a check up.... but since they're still nursing and the mom cat is still trusting us, I don't want to jeopardize anything by suddenly "kidnapping" all of her kittens and taking it to the vet.

Should I wait until the kittens are fully weaned? Or should I take the whole family (in a ... box? {scared} to the clinic)? Or should I sneak the kittens two at a time...and then the mom? Questions, questions! Also, what would be the most cost-effective way to go about all this?

any advice really appreciated!!

Re: Trying to Foster Mom Cat & Kittens -- Need Advice
 

Guess I was too long-winded to get advice? {scared}

Okay, just in case this helps anyone... we just vaccinated all cats today. And here's what I learned:

1. Mom cat -- the original stray -- will NOT like being transported. We tried introducing her to the carrier (we only got one), but in the car she was very agitated and peed. LESSON: Bring toilet paper and newspapers if you are transporting a lot of cats.{cry2}

2. All kittens went into a tall cardboard box. ...They are ~2 months old... and they ALL can jump. They wanted to explore and they kept escaping. LESSON: Make sure you have more than one person to help "catch" the kittens and put them back in the box. {victory}

3. We were very lucky we found a vet near our place and was very empty. The vet let us put all the cats in his examining room and closed the door, so they can explore all over. If we had to wait in a waiting room with other dogs/cats, I think it would have been CHAOS. {sick}

When we all got back, they don't seem too traumatized. I think it helps that the kittens were socialized a lot with us, so a trip to the vet wasn't very scary. The stray cat has always been a little "cool cat" so she recovered from her trauma pretty easily.