Twitter has fallen in love with the tale of a “kitten portal” opening up in a couple’s back garden.
On Tuesday, the second anniversary of the first kittens being found, musician Mike Shirley-Donnelly shared the full story in a Twitter Moment.
2 years ago today this first batch of feral little balls of fluff were found in our backyard and it’s not hyperbole to say our lives changed a lot as a result. At the time we had no idea how many more would eventually show up
WARNING: THREAD OF KITTEN PHOTOSHOOT pic.twitter.com/KGWOXqAC8Y
— Curious Quail ??? (@CuriousQuail) March 27, 2018
“A negligent neighbour one street over from the house we were living in abandoned two unfixed female kittens,” Shirley-Donnelly told the Press Association.
“Given the local feral tomcat population, they got pregnant almost immediately and since every house in the vicinity except ours had dogs, our yard must have felt safe. We also had some overgrown bushes that we were waiting for the rainy season to end to take care of, but they provided decent shelter for the kittens.”
This is how Kindred, Smokey, Possum and Snowapple came into our lives. (The fifth kitten we found a home for later) pic.twitter.com/CWZzdaFGwV
— Curious Quail ??? (@CuriousQuail) March 27, 2018
Five kittens were now living with the couple, when Delicaye, Shirley-Donnelly’s wife, heard meowing outside. It was a sixth kitten from a different litter and they named him Jon Snow. He would later be joined by his two siblings.
Unlike the character he’s named after, Jon Snow had siblings. A few days after we’d found him, this tortie appeared. A third and final sibling (a white one with calico ear markings) wasn’t found until much later. More on her later but this is BISON. pic.twitter.com/ERAWLwJtYc
— Curious Quail ??? (@CuriousQuail) March 27, 2018
More and more kittens began appearing in the year after the first five were discovered. In total, 24 kittens were rescued, with 21 being the peak living in their house at one time. All of their stories were told in Shirley-Donnelly’s viral Twitter moment with adorable photos.
Every cat that ended up being born in our yard was the result of TWO unfixed female kittens being abandoned by their owners. Two cats + feral toms = 24 kittens in one year, and that is with us ACTIVELY trying to trap/neuter/release. If we hadn’t? CATPOCALYPSE. pic.twitter.com/anwCidfPf2
— Curious Quail ??? (@CuriousQuail) March 27, 2018
Soon after the kitten portal had been closed by catching and neutering the two original female strays, Shirley-Donnelly and his wife moved to a larger house in Palm Springs to accommodate the new members of their family.
So what’s it like living with so many cats in the house?
“It’s possible that since we got almost all of the cats from birth or early-kittenhood that they’ve decided we’re their parents, if that makes sense. So there are no aggressive behaviours, no in-fighting, no territory marking, but they all care for each other and are super-affectionate with us.
If people take away anything from his Twitter thread, Shirley-Donnelly wants people to be educated about spaying cats.
“I’m not sure how the programmes work in the UK, but at least in California we have trap/neuter/release programmes though local animal shelters where if you use a safe trap (we use Havahart brand ones) and bring the feral cat to them, they’ll fix it, vaccinate it and you can return it to where you found it to live out its days in the wild if it’s not tameable,” he said.
“They notch a tiny little corner out of the cats ear so you can tell from a distance if the cat is fixed or not.”
