This is my first post (long time lurker!) and its a long one I'm afraid!
My ILs have two young cats, both of which are pregnant (not planned). Cat 1 is due slap bang in the middle of their 10 day holiday in July, cat 2 will have roughly 6-8 week old kittens by this point.
My ILs live a half hour drive away from us, on annoying back roads in the middle of nowhere. They don't want to pay for a cat sitter/cattery so have asked if we can help by looking after all the cats. My husband has agreed, saying we will do it - but he works full time and has two incredibly time consuming hobbies (is out 3 evenings a week and one full weekend day), so basically he has said I will do it without actually asking me (I would have said no!).
I am not particularly pleased as we have a cat of our own who I absolutely adore - she is used to us being around for feeding and she doesn't have a cat flap so needs us to let her in and out. For this reason we can't just pack up and stay at my ILs for a week. But I have a 2 year old who won't take kindly to being put in the car a few times a day, and I also have a pretty full schedule (I work P/T and we fill the other days with playgroup, swimming lessons etc) so not ideal to be driving an hour out of my way each day. I am also not sure where to put my DS in their non child proofed house while dealing with the cats/kittens.
More importantly, I HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO LOOK AFTER KITTENS!!
What I need to know, if anyone can help me out, is:
- how much time would we need to spend with these cats & their kittens over a 10 day period? Realistically, I could spend maybe an hour there a day, DH could call in an additional few days a week. Is this enough?
- what level of care do they require? i.e do we need to toilet train, feed, worm, etc or does the mother cat take care of them entirely?
- If cat 1 gives birth while we are there, what do we do? If she gives birth while we aren't there is this an issue?
I can't back out of this but I'm getting really worried. I am a sucker for my cat (& cats generally!) but I'm a very anxious person - can anyone calm me down with help/advice?
Thanks in advance for your help.