During the summer in Hong Kong, much of the expat and local community leave to get respite from the heat. The summer also coincides with a rise in kitten numbers.
There's a feral cat population, but it is not huge - feral dogs and snakes keep it low.
When people see cute kittens on the street they tend to take them in to the animal welfare centres.
This summer I had seen one too many stories of kittens needing help and got in touch with the SPCA (which was the RSPCA prior to hand back of HK). They need fosterers to take care of kittens when they are too young for the first injection and cannot be homed.
What a great job - play with the kittens, feed and medicate them, play with them some more. Then give them back before they turn into cats. SPCA provides all food, litter and vet care.
I gave my number to my local SPCA branch, and as soon as I got home the phone was ringing. Could I go to Wan Chai to get 3 x 4 week old kits please?
Wan Chai is quite a journey from where I live - it is on HK Island (see next post on geography). Still, 4 hours later I am home with 3 very, very small, very hungry, very vocal kittens.
We named them Tonker, Tinker and Tabster.
Tinker was just too small and didn't make it, but here are Tonker and Tabster on their second day with us. They are already lap cats, it must be instinctive in new kittens to sit on laps.
Tonker was very tiny at only 0.2kg, Tabster was bigger at 0.4kg.
And here they are 4 weeks (and a lot of love) later. We nursed them through ringworm, intestinal worms and a couple of viruses. Both gained weight to 1.0kg, Tonker got positively fat.
They were homed within 4 days of their return from us.
