St-Jean sur Richelieu, Québec, Canada — An unlikely pairing of cat and rooster led to the incubation of 7 kitten eggs last week. Ginette, a 4 year old tabby, is currently looking forward to raising 7 chicken-cat babies, or “chats” for short. She learned she was expecting just a few weeks ago, before she began laying eggs.
“I didn’t even know I was fertile,” she said, noting that she thought she was spayed as a kitten. It is rare but not impossible for spays to be incomplete. Several litters of kittens were born this year to supposedly “spayed” cats, hinting at the possibility of an incomplete spay or veterinary negligence. Cats spay at 4-6 months of age but the procedure can be done earlier or later at a greater risk.
While she refuses to comment on the exact circumstances under which she became pregnant with with her “chats,” she does note that Maurice, her rooster companion, plans to be available for the rearing of their strange offspring. “Hatching eggs is hard work,” she says. In order for the growing “chats” to survive, she must keep them warm 24 hours a day. She takes her meals at her nest, but she still must leave the nest to use the litter box. During that time, Maurice takes a turn at incubating the eggs and keeping them warm while Ginette takes care of business.
Caring for a kitten is difficult enough for a young, first-time mother cat, but compounded with an interspecies breeding, Ginette is both excited and scared of what is to come. Unknown yet is the status of how the babies will eat. A standard kitten diet usually consists of milk nursed from the mother cat, but Ginette is not sure whether her young will be able to nurse or whether a kitten diet would even be appropriate. The young “chats” might be born with tiny beaks and need to eat chicken meals. Ginette is not interested in old-fashioned kitten feeding if they have beaks.
Unfortunately, time is running out. The average gestation of a kitten is 63 days, while the average gestation of a chicken is 22 days. Hatching eggs in this particular situation could fall anywhere in between.