Kittenhood

One morning, in the French countryside,

a kitten is born on a farm.

As the months go by, it will grow into an authentic hunter.

What remains of its feline instincts?

Cats have been domesticated by man

and humans play a decisive role in their existence,

especially in Tokyo where cats are coddled like plush toys,

sometimes spending their entire lives

in these peculiar places called cat bars.

Miles away in Greece, some cats roam free

and are abandoned to hands of fate.

For them, their feline instinct is a question of survival.

Three cats, three destinies, three worlds.

Amazing and moving stories to discover

the secrets of these familiar creatures.

The sun is just rising,

and the farmer and his animals were already awake,

a typical morning in the French countryside.

In the barn, a new story is beginning.

Nestled in a corner of the straw are five kittens,

a hidden spot chosen by their mother

to protect them from the elements

as well as any predators that might happen by.

This behavior has been passed down

from the cat's wild ancestors.

These domesticated kittens belong to the family of Felidae

and share many likenesses with them.

Like their cousins, lions and tigers, they have a round head

with a flat muscle and protractable claws.

This little gray and white ball of fur is named Mouricette.

We're going to watch her as she grows to adulthood,

but for the past 1/2 hour, she's been growing impatient.

This is her mother and source of sustenance.

Her eight nipples are more than enough

for this litter of kittens,

but they still need to fight for a spot,

and Mouricette is already good at defending her own.

With full tummies, the under-a-week-old kittens

sink into a restless sleep.

Their brains practice making their muscles move,

and they're wracked with spasms.

This phase is called seismic sleep

and will diminish as they grow.

A week's gone by.

Mouricette's eyes are wide open,

but she still can't see yet.

She gropes her way to her mother,

relying on her sense of smell.

She crawls since her legs are too wobbly to stand.

Her little limbs aren't strong enough

to bear her weight of just 200 grams.

Her meowing is the way she calls her mother.

Mouricette is distressed by her absence

and cries to get her attention.

When mom finally comes back, it's bath time.

Cats are instinctively clean,

and the mother makes sure the family home never gets dirty.

She licks her kittens' bottoms clean,

leaving their fur covered in her pheromones.

Another plus, the stimulation

wakes them up before their meal.

Since they suckle only tiny quantities at a time,

the kittens nurse every hour, even at night.

So, they manage to drink about 25% of their weight each day.

At two weeks, they already know

how to stimulate milk production

by kneading their mother's belly.

Some adult cats, if they were weaned too early,

will reproduce this reflex to sooth themselves.

Farm cats aren't born year-round

but only during the warm season,

like most mammals in temperate climates.

The synchronization of births is caused by a hormone

called melatonin when the days grow longer in spring.

Nature knows what it's doing.

This way, the kittens have a few months

to learn how to walk before autumn arrives.

One month later,

here's what a six-week-old kitten looks like.

Mouricette is still unsteady on her feet,

but instinct pushes her to venture a little further.

Kittens are curious about everything.

These five kittens' favorite activity is playing

and especially play fighting.

The rules are simple,

bite and swat at whoever's down.

These play fights are reminiscent

of lion cubs in the Savannah,

a feline behavior, learning to fight without getting hurt.

If Mouricette were an only kitten,

her mother would be more present in her education,

but with a litter of five,

she lets the siblings keep each other company.

A reassuring cuddle also embodies

a survival strategy, heat conservation.

To develop properly,

the kittens sleep nearly 20 hours a day.

This time is needed for their growth.

Mouricette is over two months old now,

and her days in the barn are drawing to a close.

Now that she's weaned, she no longer needs her mother,

and she's clearly the boldest kitten in the litter.

The other four frightened kittens huddle in a corner,

while their sister is lured by adventure.

Mouricette doesn't know it,

but the farmer's been observing her

and has noticed her natural gift for hunting

when she was chasing her siblings.

These hands belong to her future owner.

As if often the case,

cats are given to owners as soon as they're weaned.

In the wild, six months is the age

at which wild cats are rejected by their mothers,

one year lynxes and two years for tigers.

The life of the domestic cat is much different.

Kittens are removed from their mothers

between two and three months, as soon as they are weaned.

This is because kittens adjust more easily

to a new environment within their first nine weeks of life.

It's important for territorial animals, such as these,

to discover their future home early

and discover the animals that live there,

but before she can start providing pest control at the farm,

Mouricette must first adapt to her new home.

When she first arrives, Mouricette is kept in the kitchen

to give her a chance to discover her new environment.

During the holidays, Christmas tree decorations

provide an ideal training field.

The kitten doesn't know where to look next.

Her attention span is still pretty short,

a few seconds tops, and she moves on to the next toy,

as long as it moves when it's batted about

as if it were a mouse.

Is that a fly over there?

Learning to hunt requires intensive training.

All these moves will come in useful

in real life when she grows up,

but she needs to learn to be a little less conspicuous

and wait a bit longer

before she can meet all the farm animals.

In a familiar environment,

the feline nature of the domestic cat

is not always easy to see,

but in Greece, it's much more obvious.

Some cats don't have it so easy,

and this picturesque setting on the Aegean Sea

does not guarantee an idyllic existence.

On an island off the shore of Athens,

stray cats live in colonies.

Introduced by pirates who occupied the port

until the the 19th century,

their population has exploded in the absence of predators.

But their scarred little faces

show the harsh reality hidden behind the postcard setting.

Here, we see a little ginger orphan.

Skinny and weak, the kitten must struggle to survive.

It's undernourished and doesn't fare well

during the cool nights of early autumn.

Nearby, three luckier kittens play fight

while the little ginger kitten looks on.

One of them is even agile enough to climb a tree

and attempt to hunt for food.

The reason this trio is more robust than our ginger kitten

is that their mother is around to watch over them

and provide them with food.

Mother cat makes the rules.

She rations out her milk by feeding them in turns.

Elsewhere, they would be too old,

but here, their mother's milk