Kathryn and I had a fun and interesting experience Thursday. Wednesday evening, I was up with Gale in the night. She was very cuddly; she was trying to sleep on my head and couldn’t get close enough to me. Then she would roam the house and I found her multiple times in the boys’ clothing drawers. I pulled out the box Kathryn had made for her and put towels in it and tried to encourage Gale to “choose” this spot to give birth.
The older three kids left Thursday morning to spend time with Grandma and Grandpa (Ziglar) at their cabin in Alabama After they left, Gale was unsettled and crying for several hours. She was only quiet if Kathryn was holding her and even then, she was restless. After lunch, Kathryn was outside for a few hours and I was busy inside. Around 3:15, Kathryn came in and I told her I had not seen Gale in a few hours. She instinctively went to one of the boys’ drawers and “found” Gale (The drawer was completely closed. She crawled under and jumped in). She didn’t think anything of it and picked her up. She realized immediately that Gale was wet and Kathryn looked down in the drawer and realized Gale had her kittens. She called me in and a friend showed up around the same time (3:30pm). There were only 2 kittens and we felt another one in her belly. We watched her for awhile and nothing happened so we moved her to Kathryn’s room into the box. We kept an eye on her; about 8:20pm she seemed restless again and started crying. Sure enough, she birthed another kitten. Kathryn was able to watch her push the third one out. We were all tired so we went to bed. In the morning, Kathryn and I were taking pictures of Gale and her kittens before the room had light (Gale preferred dark and quiet). Gale stood up and needed some love, so I took a picture of the kittens in the dark. When the picture came up on my phone, I said, “Oh look Kathryn! She has 2 tabby and 2 black.” We both looked at each other and realized I said 4 kittens; she had another one after we went to bed! Friday morning, a kitten went missing and Kathryn and I were trying to leave for nature study. Then I saw Gale grab a kitten and run towards the boys’ room. She was carrying them back to where she first delivered. So we put her back in the drawer (with a clean towel) with the kittens. When the boys arrived home on Friday, we moved Gale and the kittens to the box and put it in his closet where it is dark. The boys have their drawer back and it is all clean!
Gale is such a good Mama; she leaves the box to go potty and eat. Otherwise, she lays and nurses them all day.