Queenie

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Queenie is a very timid cat whom we were able to convert to semi-friendly, but she remains extremely timid.

She was trapped at the Henderson Cat Colony and she was lactating at the time which meant her kittens were somewhere.

Later it turned out, that her kittens were the five (5) that workers had discovered inside the house.

We had tried to locate their Mom, but she never came back to her kittens in the trap.

When we trapped her we had already retrieved eight (8) bottle kittens from two different locations at the colony because their mothers had been scared away by workers.

We had to start bottle-feeding the kittens immediately and it was several days later before Queenie was trapped.

Because she was lactating when trapped, we introduced her to the kittens in hopes she would nurse them. 24/7 bottle feeding is tiring.

At first, she was a bit indifferent and we now know it was because we did not properly “scent” the kittens before introducing to her AND because we had left Haley in the same kennel because we had trapped them together.

We were not prepared for all these cats and kittens and did not have a bunch of kennels for multiple cats, so it took a few days for us to get organized and supplied.

When we removed Haley to her own space so that only Queenie and the eight (8) bottle kittens were together, it was only a few hours until she accepted all of them and let them nurse.

Later when we were having to bathe kittens to removed poop, they all cried as we washed them, but when certain ones cried then Queenie cried back.

Not for all of them, only for some of them.

We determined that five (5) of the kittens were her's and the other three (3) were from another litter, but she accepted them as her own.

She was a very good mom to them all, but could not produce enough milk for 8 kittens, so we still had to feed all of them supplemental formula 24/7.

She is very sweet but also very timid and I now understand why she would not come back for her kittens while the workers were present making noise, etc.

By the time the kittens were weaned weeks later Queenie had become somewhat receptive~tolerant to being touched and stroked within her kennel.

I felt bad for her because she had been confined for so long and decided to let her out in the Green Room.

Since it connects to the house she could go to the Catairium or come back inside and she would have some freedom to move about.

However, in the Green Room she immediately found hiding spots and refused to come out or interact with the other cats.

Later she moved to the Catairium and took to hiding 24/7 in a tunnel provided there.

In hindsight, we should have spent a few more weeks socializing her in her kennel and letting her out in a spare room where we could work with her, but we were swamped with so many other cats we did not have time or space to do so.

The fact that she remains so timid and shy after almost a year of being enclosed, means that she is in need of some personal attention from a loving foster who has time to spend with her.