5 wild Far Eastern kittens were adopted by an ordinary cat (3 photos)

Five wild Far Eastern kittens from the Krasnoyarsk Zoo “Roev Ruchey” were “adopted” by an ordinary domestic cat.

The babies were 10 days old when their mother died of illness. Zoologists found kittens in a den house, they clung to a dead cat, meowed and asked for food. The babies refused concentrated milk from a bottle, and then they urgently began to look for a wet nurse.

One of the zoo employees remembered that her relatives had a cat with kittens - the same age as the orphans. The Far Eastern kittens were put in a portable cage and sent to their “grandparents” in a private country house. And the kids now live in... the oven!

“When the orphans were shown to the foster mother, she was very happy with them, immediately began to lick them and calm them down,” says Ekaterina Mikhailova, methodologist at the Roev Ruchey flora and fauna park. - The cat’s own cubs have accepted wild animals, play and fuss with them as with each other. In total, the cat Tuchka now has eight children - three of her own and five adopted ones. The entire large family settled in the oven of a Russian stove, which is sometimes heated to make everyone feel warm and comfortable.

But wild kittens will not stay with their foster mother for long. Once their teeth begin to grow and they begin to eat meat, the little predators will be taken back to the zoo. And when the Far Eastern cats get stronger and grow up, they will be transferred to other zoos.

In the Krasnoyarsk “Roevoy Ruche” there have already been cases when adoptive mothers were found for cubs who, for one reason or another, were left without a mother. Lion cubs, pumas and tiger cubs were raised here by dogs, but without cats it would have been extremely difficult for zoologists: these assistants at Roevoy Ruchek fed squirrels, arctic foxes, foxes, raccoons, civet cats and mongooses.