Turkish Van cat lookalike brings her kittens to the person who feeds her in an act of deep trust

The video on Twitter says that this cat was being fed by a person and decided (wisely, it has to be said) to bring her kittens to the person for help in raising them. It is a beautiful example of complete trust from a cat in a human. Good on that human whoever they are.

We are not told but it would seem to me that the video was captured somewhere in the Mediterranean region and perhaps even in Turkey as this cat is a dead ringer for a Turkish Van purebred but is in fact a stray cat.

RELATED: The Real Turkish Van Cat.

The Turkish Van in Turkey is more purebred than the registered selectively bred Turkish Vans in cat shows in America.

Most cat breeds have lost their inherited connection with their origins due to intensive selective breeding by breeders over decades in following breed standards.

Quiz: bottle-feeding a neonatal kitten

Quiz: bottle-feeding a neonatal kitten. Photo: Alley Cat Allies on Twitter.

Here is a nice little quiz: one question, multiple answers, from Alley Cat Allies, about bottle-feeding a neonatal kitten who is less than a week old. The question is how often should she be fed? The three answers are as follows:

A. Every hour

B. Every two hours

C. Every four hours

D. Three times a day

My answer (and I will be happy to be corrected) is C. For larger kittens D is the correct answer.

RELATED: Can cats drink Pedialyte? Yes.

It might be useful to add a little bit of detail to that and so here it is. I'm going to quote pretty much from the paediatric section of the book Cat Owner's Home Veterinary Handbook Third Edition.

"Small, weak kittens at birth are often dehydrated and chilled. Before feeding formula, they should be rehydrated by feeding a warmed glucose and water solution (5% to 10% glucose) or Pedialyte solution at the rate of 4 mL per feeding every 1 to 2 hours until they are warm and well hydrated. Then begin using the calculated formula and feed every four hours. Older, larger kittens can manage on three meals a day. However, if a kitten cannot take the required amount at each feeding, then the number of feedings should be increased so the kitten gets all the recommended calories per day."

Mother hen 'incubates' three tabby kittens

And extraordinary little video of a mother hen 'incubating' her three kittens! They crawl out from under her protective care in what appears to be a barn in Iraq. That is all we know. Except that it is not uncommon for mothers of one species of animal to raise the offspring of another animal. It is nice, isn't it? It is good to see. It restores our faith in the world or at least a little bit! Mothers do it naturally and humans do it too, all the time. These are interspecies relationships. I hope they make us more aware of the sentience of animals. An awareness of animal sentience improves animal welfare. Click on this link (opens new window) to see a cat protecting chickens! The exact opposite.

Mother hen protects and incubates three tabby kittens.

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Note: This is a video from another website. Sometimes they are deleted at source which stops them working on this site. If that has happened, I apologise but I have no control over it.

Wild Whiskers of Tauranga, New Zealand do a great job in managing community cats

The photograph that you see on this page caught my eye, which is why I was drawn to writing about this rescue organisation: Wild Whiskers of Tauranga, New Zealand. In New Zealand there is an issue with feral cats. In line with their neighbours, Australia, the country want to kill feral cats and simply get rid of them in the most convenient and expedient way, which leads to cruelty. So it is particularly nice to read about this caring organisation, managed and owned by veterinary nurse Sharna Asplin.

 Wild Whiskers of Tauranga, New Zealand do a great job in managing community cats. Photo: Wild Whiskers.

Sharna is a smart cookie. She is very sensible and organised. Everything that she has said about community cat in her area is absolutely spot on correct. Every organisation concerned with managing and caring for community cats in the interests of the cats and the residents should see how she works.

She runs a volunteer-run group and they have two focuses. In the summer it is kitten season and over this period she uses her best efforts to take in feral kittens (she describes them as "wild kittens") and to socialise them so that they can become loved domestic cats in their adulthood. The kitten should be within that critical timeframe, the first eight weeks of life approximately, when they can be socialised successfully and relatively easily. It's much harder to socialise adult feral cats.

She has 20 foster carers across Tauranga who take the kittens in. They make sure that the kittens will become excellent companion animals and after that assessment they treat the kittens for fleas and worms and sterilise, vaccinate and microchip them.

They put them up for adoption. The other focus is during the winter months when they employ TNR techniques. They do this with considerable care and the involvement, wisely, of the residents. They make sure that the community cats are not owned by posting on social media. They also scan for microchips and if possible they place a "found cat collar" on the cat. They also contact local veterinary clinics. They then neuter the cats and release them back to where they came from.

She says that they only conduct TNR where there are proper systems in place, namely that there is a volunteer to manage the colony or cat and a regular food source so that the cats does not present a danger to native wildlife.

Sometimes they have to euthanize a feral cat because of injury and/or sickness.

She says that they have rescued, rehabilitated and rehomed over 100 kittens in the past season from October to April and they have trapped, neutered and returned adults.

She makes the excellent point that as these are community cats she needs to ensure that she engages with the community to obtain their cooperation. This, I'm sure, helps to avoid antagonism and it also helps to create a community spirit in dealing with what is a community problem. She says that if a citizen of the area finds a stray cat the best thing that they can do is to take photographs and post a description of the cat online. This helps to get the ball rolling because they can find out whether the cat is feral or owned.

It can be difficult to distinguish between a domestic cat which has become a stray, looking dirty and starving, and a genuine feral cat. People should not assume that because a cat is dirty and thin that it is a feral cat. The same by the way goes for behaviour. Often domestic cats can be fearful of strangers which is a behavioural trait of feral cats. For this reason, I have always argued that people should not be shooting at cats that they believe are feral (if approved by the local authority). It might be shooting someone's pet which has become lost or has been abandoned. Anyway it is essentially very cruel.

In acknowledgement of her good work the local authority has provided her with a $4000 grant which has been a great help to her during the coronavirus pandemic because it precluded her ability to raise funds. Well done to Sharna.

My thanks to Sun Live for the report.

Cat weaned too early sleeps with owner's finger in his mouth

This is both cute and sad. This black cat sleeps with his owner's finger in his mouth. This looks like the cat was weaned too early and that his owner's finger is a nipple substitute. It's like sucking your thumb when you're a child and you still do it when you become a teenager and older for emotional comfort. 

It's comforting for this cat which is cute but being weaned too early (which means being removed from your mother's feeding and her breast too early) can lead to this kind of insecure behaviour. I've seen it in a cat I fostered and you see it not too infrequently on the Internet. 

It may be one reason why Siamese cats are predisposed to sucking wool. Cats who have been early weaned will suck items of clothing or parts of the anatomy of their owner. The lanolin in wool smells like the mother's breast. I don't think there is much that can be done about it because the "damage" has been done. 

You might be able to alleviate it through plenty of tender loving care and creating a very secure environment. The cat should not be punished and in my view the owner should put up with it and let their cat do this because if not the cat may take from that human behaviour an understanding that they are being rejected. In other words it might undermine the bond between human and cat.

Cat weaned too early sleeps with owner's finger in his mouth. Screenshot.

Note: videos on this site are typically made by people other than me and held on YouTube servers or the servers of other businesses (not the server storing this website). Sometimes the videos are deleted at source which stops them working on this site. If that has happened I apologise but I have no control over it.