Late one night, a kitten foster mom for Home at Last Rescue picked up a litter of four tiny kittens. They didn’t have their mother, so she would have to spend the whole night taking care of them and bottle feeding them herself. She was doing a great job, but they wouldn’t stop crying for their mother.
Shipwrecked
These kittens were found on a boat and taken to animal services. When animal services asked the people who found them to take them back to find the mom, the people wouldn’t let them. Their new foster mom hoped she could learn where the kittens had come from and retrieve the mom cat herself, but she had no luck.
She wished the kittens still had their mom. In a post on her Instagram, she gave some important advice:
“If you find kittens in your shed, planters, deck, or boat, please don’t take them. Watch from a safe distance and eventually you will see momma come. Not that they should stay outside, but momma & kittens need to be caught together.”
She would be able to take care of the kittens well, but not as well as their mother could. She said:
“It’s breaking my heart to hear these sweet babies crying so much, and nothing I’m trying is providing them comfort.”
But after the first tough night, the kittens were doing better. They were purring and cuddling, and they were very healthy.
Their foster mom always comes up with themed names for her foster kitten litters. Since the kittens had been “shipwrecked” on their boat, she decided the theme would be Gilligan’s Island, and she named them Gilligan, Skipper, Ginger, and Mary-Ann.
Meet the crew
As these sweet kittens grew up, they got more confident, and their individual personalities started to come out.
Mary-Ann was the sweetest and calmest of the crew. She loved to take naps and cuddle in her foster mom’s lap.
Ginger was “quite the little lady” and had the pointiest ears. She took the longest out of all her siblings to switch from bottle feeding to wet food, but when she did, she did just fine.
Skipper was better at eating food by himself. He was very chill and loved to cuddle with his brother, Gilligan.
Gilligan was a very vocal kitten. He also liked to spend time with the younger batch of kittens that their foster mom was also taking care of, playing with them and giving them baths.
Sailing home
Soon these shipwrecked kitties were all grown up and ready to be adopted. They were taken to their forever homes in bonded pairs: Gilligan and Skipper, and Ginger and Mary-Ann. They all got new human families, and the two brothers got a new dog brother too. Their foster mom said:
“The boat babies are no longer shipwrecked…We are going to miss these babies like mad but are so happy they’ve found their home at last.”