05/28/2025
Meet Spruce and Juniper! 🐾💕
Spruce (white stripe up his nose) and Juniper (smaller and without white on her face) are a little over 5-months-old, and if they look scared in their pictures, well… that’s because they are! Though they are young, they spent the first 4.5 months of their lives outside, learning from their mom and their family group how to survive outside. And while many kittens born outside do grow up to become the adult community cats we TNR, the sad reality of kitten season is that many of them will not make it to adulthood—so I keep telling these two that they’re lucky to be inside now! 💕🐾
This brother and sister duo have been with us for 4-5 weeks so far. Spruce was trapped first, on Earth day! It was only fitting to give them names to match. Juniper took a little longer to trap, but thankfully her brother was only alone for a week. They are undergoing some slow introductions to human life and socializing, and I expect we will have them for a few months until they have learned to trust, but it’s worth every bit of extra time to not have to release older kittens. 💕🐾
When we started trying to trap this group, there were three heavily pregnant cats among them. We did catch one a little while before these guys, and thankfully we caught the kitty, who we have called Hazelnut, just in time for her kittens to not be born outside! Sadly, we did not catch the other two before they both disappeared for about a week before I started seeing them come to the feeding area again, suspiciously less round. I’ll be on kitten watch in about 2-4 weeks and will work to trap the whole family group, kittens and adults together, quickly while the next group of kittens are still young! 🐱
