Cats are natural predators and they will chase anything that runs away. Squirrels are one of them, and their bushy tails make them a more enticing target for felines.
But one momma cat in Crimea doesn’t prey on squirrels, in fact, she has adopted not one, but four of these critters as her own!
Pusha the cat lives in a miniature park in Bakhchisaray, where the local residents gave her the squirrels after they were abandoned by their own mother.
Olga Fadeeva, keeper at Miniature Park of Bakhchisaray, said:
“One day our visitors brought them [baby squirrels] to us in a box. They were about four weeks old, their eyes were already open a little. We had a cat who had had kittens. We decided to try to give them to her, and she accepted them as if they were her own.”
At first, the cat didn’t want them, and the squirrels were afraid of their new mom. But eventually, they all have grown to love each other with each passing day.
“The cat was weirded out at first as the squirrels tried to get out of the box, climb onto her, reach into her mouth and so on,” Olga said. “But later she accepted her new children and they found a common language. Now they live as a happy family, kittens and baby squirrels.”
Pusha just gave birth to four kittens, and she had taken in another four that do not belong to her species. This makes for a total of 8 offspring that she needs to feed! That’s quite an overwhelming number for any mother, right?
But as a doting momma, Pusha tries to feed everyone when she can. However, she doesn’t have enough milk for everybody, so those who don’t get fed on time are given goat’s milk through tiny bottles by Olga and her colleagues.
The group eat, sleep, and play together just like a normal family. And it definitely looks like they’ve adjusted pretty well in their new arrangement!
Check out the video below from Inside Edition and see momma Pusha with her furry set of critters.
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