Monday, October 22, 2007, 17:58
Little Black Girl Kitty
When I went downstairs after midnight Sunday to feed the kittens, the little black girl kitty was no better. She did not want to eat, and she was weak and very tired. I managed to get a few more drops of amoxicillan into her, and then I let her sleep. The other two kittens ate quite well.
I fully expected the little black kitten to die overnight or to be in very bad shape Monday morning.
When I went downstairs Monday morning to feed the kittens, much to my surprise, the little black kitten was still alive. And she managed to swallow 5cc of formula! I got a few more drops of amoxicillan into her. The other two kittens ate well and were very lively -- lively to the point that I have to be careful they don't crawl to the edge of my leg and fall on the floor. They can move pretty quickly.
I won't feed the kittens again until 4 p.m., so I won't know until then how the little black kitten is doing. I do not want to pull the towel back off the box to check on her because then the other two will wake up and will start yelling.
One morning while I was feeding the kittens and they were all pretty much back to sleep in their box, my fluffy orange and white kitty, MaryAnne, was sitting by the door chirping at me because she wanted to go outside.
All at once, the kittens woke up and started yelling again.
"What's with you?" I asked. "You were all just asleep."
The kittens continued yelling. And then it hit me. They had heard MaryAnne chirping.
"Okay, MaryAnne. Go outside," I said as I opened the door for her.
Once MaryAnne was outside and the kittens couldn't hear her, they settled back down and went to sleep again.
My orange tom, Gilligan, and my black tom, Rocky, have chirped at me, too, while I have been feeding the kittens. But the babies don't react to Gilligan and Rocky. I can just imagine what the kittens are thinking: "Don't be silly, LeAnn. Gilligan and Rocky are tom cats. MaryAnne is a girl kitty. Girl kitties are momma kitties. Tom cats are not momma kitties."
Amazing, isn't it.
The kittens are one week old today.
LeAnn R. Ralph
Monday, October 22, 2007, 04:50
Gain and Loss
I've done it again.
Well, actually, *I* haven't done it. Little Sister did. She had four kittens last Monday night.
When I went down to the barn at night to check on the horses, I heard the kittens mewing in the hay.
Tuesday morning when I went out to feed the horses, the kittens were still crying. As I stood there in the barn, listening, I tried to pinpoint where they were in the stack of hay that goes all the way up to the ceiling. At first I thought Little Sister had them in a cubbyhole on the floor under the hay where the barn kitties like to curl up for a nap.
I bent over to listen, but when I did, the mewing grew fainter. When I stood up again, it grew louder. I knew the kittens had to be somewhere in the hay at about shoulder height. The crying was the loudest when I stood up straight.
All this fall, I had been hoping to bring Little Sister into the vet clinic to get her spayed. Unfortunately, I would only see her about once a week when she would come to barn for some kitty food. And then she'd be gone again out into the woods.
It is difficult to make an appointment at the vet clinic when you can't find the cat.
No momma (to speak of)
Anyway, by Tuesday morning, since the kittens were still crying, I was pretty much convinced that Little Sister was not taking care of them. If she has kittens in the spring, she takes care of them. And in the spring, she is, in fact, an excellent mother.
But when Little Sister has kittens in the fall, apparently she does not take care of them. That's how we ended up with Snowflake last fall. Bless her little kitty heart. She gets in the middle of everything we do now, convinced that we would not accomplish nothing without her help.
Anyway, I had to go to a meeting at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, so I couldn't do anything about the kittens just then. I did, however, climb up on the hay to see if I could determine their location more exactly, and I was able to do that.
All day Tuesday, I kept thinking that, well, if Little Sister didn't take care of the kittens, maybe I should just let things be and let them go.
Can't do it
By the time I got home Tuesday afternoon, I knew I could not just let them go. I absolutely could *not* do it. If I let those kittens die without trying to help them, Randy would have to go to the barn all winter long to feed the horses because I wouldn't be able to bring myself to go down there. If I let those kittens die without trying to do something to help them, I would not be able to live with myself. The kittens did not ask to be born. And they are also God's creatures as much as anything or anyone else.
When Randy came home from work, I asked him to help me check on the kittens. He climbed up on the hay, moved some bales, and there they were. They were still mewing, so I knew Little Sister wasn't taking care of them. If their Momma was feeding them and keeping them warm, they wouldn't be crying. I reached down to where they were in the hay. And they were like little cold stones. They had almost no body heat left. They were on their way out. And Little Sister was nowhere to be seen.
"We have to get them in the house now," I said. "They're so cold. They'll die if we don't."
I looked at Randy for a moment. "I thought maybe Little Sister would take care of them today. But if she didn't, I thought I could just let them go and let them die. But I can't. I cannot do it."
I started to cry then.
My husband put his arms around me. "No. Of course we can't let them die. We need a heating pad," he said.
To the house
So, still crying, up to the house I went for a box and a heating pad. We put the kittens in the box, put the box in the basement, plugged in the heating and covered the box with a towel.
Then the waiting began.
"I can't feed them too soon," I said to Randy. "I could kill them if I try to feed them too soon before they are warmed up."
For the next several hours, we kept going down to the basement every little while to check on the babies. There were two gray ones and two black ones. They were technically Snowflake's brothers and sisters.
Every time we checked on the kittens, they were moving around a little more and little more. Finally, by 9 p.m., they felt warm to the touch.
"I'm going to try feeding them now," I said.
Nervous wreck
I have to admit that I was a nervous wreck. The kittens were so tiny. And they had been so cold. I had mixed up some formula earlier, so I warmed up a few tablespoons in a half-pint jar and took it downstairs. Randy got a chair for me and set it by the box.
At that first feeding, I managed to get a 1/2 cc into each one of them. To put it in perspective, there are 5cc in a teaspoon.
An hour or so later, I took the formula downstairs again. By this time, after getting a tiny bit in their tiny tummies, the kittens were awake and lively and hungry.
At the second feeding, I managed to get 1cc to 1.5cc into each of them.
I ended up going downstairs two more times that first night to get more formula into the kittens. They were restless and unsure of themselves in a strange place without a mother cat, but eventually they settled down and were able to go to sleep. The poor little things had gone for almost 24 hours with nothing to eat.
Tuesday
Tuesday morning, the kittens were hungry and ready to eat more. They were all lively and eagerly seeking something to suck. They would suck on my thumb or on my hand. Tiny kittens cannot empty their bladders or move their bowels by themselves, so I have to help them with a warm, wet washcloth. My "tools of the trade" -- in addition to formula and a syringe -- is a gallon bucket of warm water with lots of potty rags in it. The kittens were all emptying their bladders and moving their bowels with my help. And they were eating. And very lively.
Wednesday
Wednesday morning, my first inkling that something might be wrong with one of the kittens is that the little black tom did not want to eat. He did end up eating, but not as much as he had eaten before and not as much as the others. At first I thought the formula was too warm, but the other kittens thought it was fine.
By Wednesday afternoon, the little tom still did not want to eat very much. And by Wednesday evening, I knew something was very wrong with him. He was not moving around, and he definitely did not want to eat. Randy came downstairs to hold him and cuddle him and to give me some emotional support. I spent quite a while holding the little guy myself and crying. I was sure that he would be dead by Thursday morning.
By Wednesday evening, the other kittens were starting to purr. It always amazes me that something so tiny can purr. The little sick black kitten was purring, too, when I held him. But I didn't take much comfort in that. Cats also purr when they are distressed.
Thursday
Thursday morning, the little black tom, much to my surprise, was still alive. But just barely. And at that point, I began to wonder if he might have pneumonia. I had some amoxicillan for kitties in the refrigerator. I brought the bottle downstairs and managed to get a couple of drops into him. When they are that tiny, a couple of drops is about all they need.
When I went downstairs Thursday afternoon to feed the babies, the little black tom was gone. I lifted him out of the box and held him for a few moments -- and of course I cried. The poor little baby. He had been growing and lively and doing well. And now all of a sudden, he was gone.
I wrapped him in a towel. I figured Randy would want to help me bury him when he came home from work.
The other kittens were hungry and were eating well. And I was thankful for that.
We buried the little black tom under the grapevine behind the barn. If he had been a "barn kitty" in warmer weather, he would have been exploring and playing under the grapevine when he got a bit older. The grapevine is usually the first excursion out of doors for kittens born in the barn.
Friday and Saturday
The three kittens that are left, one black and two gray, ate very well on Friday and Saturday. At each feeding, they were up to between 7 and 8 cc each. One of the gray kittens is a tom, I think, and he is more of "bottomless pit" -- he usually takes 1 more cc than the others at each feeding.
Sunday
It is Sunday evening now, and I am worried. The little black girl kitten is not doing very well. She did not want to eat this evening. Not at all. She acted like she was hungry, but she didn't want to suck on the syringe as she had been doing before so well. She wasn't moving around much either. Randy brought the amoxicillan downstairs and I managed to get a few drops into her. She wasn't crazy about swallowing it, but I got a bit into her.
The other two gray kittens ate quite well. After I came back upstairs, I happened to think that maybe the little black girl kitten wasn't warm enough. She is smaller than the other two. When Rocky and Juliette were babies, I made the mistake of putting them into a bigger box too soon. All of a sudden Juliette stopped eating. Well, she didn't stop eating. But she wouldn't suck on the syringe, and she wasn't doing well at all. Before that, she was sucking on the syringe much better than Rocky, who never really did figure it out. Not that it hurt him much. He's 16 pounds now. It finally dawned on me that Juliette wasn't eating well because she was too cold. I moved them back into the smaller box, and in a few hours, she was back to her old self.
I turned the eating pad down to low this afternoon when I was downstairs to take care of the kittens. I didn't want the kittens to get too warm. And yet, I know they cannot stand being cold, either. Keeping infant kittens warm is critical.
At this point, I do not know if the little black girl kitten is simply not warm enough. Or if she is sick. I turned the heating pad up to high. I will go back downstairs after midnight to feed them again.
LeAnn R. Ralph