No feathers fly in this relationship
Kitten the cat has nurtured ducks, lambs and possums, but now the feline foster-mum has taken on an exotic new child – a week-old baby emu.
Proving that love does not discriminate between feathers and fur, the 2-yearold cat and chick are the best of pals, napping, playing and grooming together.
The friendship hatched at Free as a Hawk sanctuary at Te Horo, on the Kapiti coast, which takes in injured and abandoned wildlife.
Owner Taneile Hoare said the pair were called Kitten and Emu because ‘‘we’ve just had so many animals coming through here that it gets hard to name them’’.
The animal friends might seem unusual to some but Hoare was not surprised by the fledgling friendship.
‘‘The cat snuggles all babies . . . she’s like a snuggly foster parent for little animals. The cats are all used to orphans and have had possums, chicks, ducklings and lambs cuddling up to them.’’
When their mother died, Kitten and two of her siblings were bottle-fed by Hoare, something she said resulted in them being ‘‘extra smoochy cats’’.
‘‘Hand-raised cats tend to turn out a bit different than the ones raised by their mothers.’’ The tabby would continue with her foster duties until she got tired of it or moved on to the next baby, she said.
Kitten’s parenting skill-set includes grooming Emu’s long neck, and snuggling with her bird-child on Hoare’s sofa.
It is not the only interspecies relationship that has sprung up at the sanctuary.
A baby alpaca feeds on a horse and a love triangle between a duck, goose and sheep plays out daily.
‘‘I’m kind of used to it all, not much surprises me any more. All animals can get along with each other and it’s not unusual. I think it’s more to do with people putting perceptions on to animals and expecting them to fight each other.’’
Hatched on a farm in Katikati, Emu came to live on Hoare’s Te Horo sanctuary a week ago to provide company for Emmy, a grown up single emu. ‘‘We won’t introduce them for a while though – big emus will eat little chicks.’’
Emu chicks can put on half a kilogram each day and when fully grown, at 1 year old, they can weigh 100kg.
Hoare established Free as a Hawk Refuge in 2012 and relies on donations to keep the operation running.
While she mainly concentrated on rescuing and rehabilitating birds, she did not turn away any animal in need. ‘‘Just because they’re not native doesn’t mean they don’t deserve to be rescued and cared for.’’