June 28, 2015

a breakthrough this afternoon!

I have been feeding and caring for these guys for almost a week now. Today I laid down on the floor in their room, and started talking to and petting Ziggy, the black one. He had been the most fearful, hissy and hiding one.

Well he started to purr!! Pretty soon he was snuggling up to me and purring, sniffing my hair, trying to get close. This is the first time any of them have approached me--best I had done before is that they allowed me to pet them at arm's length, or let me pet them on my lap once I had picked them up.

Soon all four were on me as though I were a mama cat--snuggling, purring, climbing on me,playing with me! I could hardly believe it. I think what was key is that I was lying down and they were able to get right near my face and alongside my body. They started rooting around on each other's fur looking to nurse, while purring, and then I knew I was in--I had become Mama cat.

They may forget and be afraid again, but I know this is a big step forward. The first time they wanted to come close to me and enjoy being petted, scratched and loved. The look of contentment on their faces was just priceless. That's why I do this.

June 25, 2015

New fosters!

I picked up four kittens on Monday. They are eight weeks old but are "under-social", meaning that they need to get more used to people. They were also underfed and spent a week at the shelter just being fed and monitored. From this I surmise that they were born to a feral mom and got abandoned at six weeks or so when she could not feed them anything other than her milk. There was a fifth sib who died two days after being rescued.

To make it worse they all came down with colds on the day I picked them up, so they have been sneezy and stuffy. I had to spoon feed one yesterday (they won't eat what they can't smell on their own) but today he ate from the dish. I have a humidifier going in the room and they are on an antibiotic.

They will run and hide and hiss at me when I want to pick them up, but once I do, they are calm in my lap. So I have hope that they will come around in a few more days. They are okay with me sitting in the room while they play--just don't approach me or want me to pick them up.

Every batch of fosters seems to give me new challenges to learn to handle! I suppose that keeps it from being boring...

They are very cute, an assorted 4-pack of an orange, gray, tabby and black. In these pictures, you can see sore eyes and noses from their colds, but they are on the mend! The brown tabby is a female and the rest are male.

Ziggy:


Tabitha:


Jordie (orange) and Dickens (grey)


Playtime:

June 19, 2015

Lacey's kittens: "Graduation Day"!

On Wednesday the kittens and their mom went back to the shelter, where I assume they had their surgery on Thursday. Soon they will be made available on the adoption floor if all goes well. Lacey had started to go into heat for the second time, and that was no fun for us or for her, so I felt it would not be good to delay her return. And the kittens "made weight", that is to say, weighed in at over two pounds which qualified them for surgery. Maui was 2 lb., 1 oz., and Kona was 2 lb., 10 oz. and they were almost nine weeks old. They are nine weeks old today, in fact, and are getting ready to begin their new lives. The kittens will be housed in the same cage, but separated from their mom.

Kittens have been coming in at the shelter by twos and threes and getting adopted quickly, so it looks good for these two. They are little sweeties. It seems a little quiet and empty around our house, but my cats are happier. Soon enough we'll probably get an offer to foster some more. If you want to try to see the listings for these two you can go to http://www.ebhs.org/index.php/adopt-2/cats, and look for them. But sometimes kittens barely make it onto the website before being adopted (okay black ones might take a few days longer). I'll update you if they are. They might be available by tomorrow or Sunday. Adult cats are often ready by the next day after their spay/neuter surgery, which would be today.

Here are some "graduation" portraits:

June 12, 2015

Lacey's kittens: eight weeks old!

Hi again,
This is Maui the tabby and Kona the black kitten and we are feeling pretty grown up. We were born eight weeks ago! We still have our mama with us and we even still nurse sometimes, but just for comfort. This week we finally started to learn to eat dry kibble--although still with water on it. Some kitties take to it, but we are taking our time. Canned food is so good!

During the day we have the run of the upstairs, and Mama watches out for us. Lots of new things to play with and do. We have this cool cat tunnel, and a new box with mouse holes cut into it. We can climb and jump better than ever! Here are some pictures of what we've been doing this week:



Playing in the cat tunnel



The new box: Kona says, "I'm queen of the, er, box!"



Wrestling! "No fair," says Maui, "You weigh 9 ounces more than me!"



Maui says, "Don't I look just like Mama? I'm small framed like her, too."



We likes our naptimes!



Playing on the big bed is fun, too.



We make Mama SO tired!

June 7, 2015

Lacey's kittens: seven weeks old!

Hi everybody! Our foster mom had to go out of town for a few days, but she's back and ready to help us do this post. We are seven weeks old now! Yay! We have so much energy and can do so many things, that she can hardly get us to hold still long enough to get a picture in focus. We are eating cat food very well now--the wet stuff anyway--and have taken to sharing one dish with Mama. We can eat as fast as she does now! We aren't nursing very much--we aren't babies any more. We are allowed to run around the whole upstairs of the house because we are perfectly housebroken, so we play under and on top of the big beds and explore everywhere. We can't go downstairs though, because then Mama would fight with our foster mom's regular cats. Oh well. We have a great room of our own full of toys and comfy beds. Here are a few pictures to show how our week went:



This is me, Kona.



This is me, Maui.



This is us having lunch with Mama.



Playing with a ball.



This is the carrier that we go in to visit the vet at the shelter. We got our distemper boosters this week and Kona got an antibiotic prescription for her little rattle in her chest, left over from the virus we all had back when we were little. The shelter has new people and funny smells, but we were not so scared on this second trip. Here I, Kona am tasting the bars.



Cat grass!



I'm ready for ya!



Getting tired; time for a little bath.



We get to use this cozy heated cat bed when we want to sleep just by ourselves.

May 29, 2015

Lacey's kittens: six weeks old

Hi everybody! We are Kona and Maui and we are big enough now to take over this post! We learned to do a lot of things this week! And here are some of them:



We learned to climb to the top of the kitten tree, straight up the pole!



We got cuter!



And sillier!

Here is a video of us playing.



This week we learned to find unusual places to take naps!



And we get naughty when Mama tries to give us our baths!



We are also eating wet cat food four times a day with gusto, and using the litter box all by ourselves. We still nurse sometimes, but Mama doesn't put up with it for very long.

Our foster mom is taking us on expeditions outside of our room and boy is that fun! Mama worries at us until we are safely back in our room again. This picture shows us in the top of the kitten tree, our favorite place to take our morning nap. And being six weeks old is so very exhausting! So we will say goodnight!

May 23, 2015

Lacey's kittens: five weeks old

(Been busy today but I'm finally getting to this weekly installment. See my journal for the entire series of posts and see how they have grown!)

This has been a big week for the kittens. At four weeks they began to learn to eat wet food from a dish and use the litter box. I started by feeding from a plastic spoon, then gradually led their faces down to the shallow dish with wet food in it. Now at five weeks they've got it down pretty well. Eating four small meals a day.

Litter box is coming along: sometimes they will go to it themselves, and sometimes I put them in to remind them. Mom is a good role model for what to do, but they pretty much go where they smell it's right to go. Forget shallow boxes though--mine like normal sized ones, maybe because they feel safer with the higher sides around them. They are good climbers and can get in and out okay.

We also had our first outing: I took them to the shelter for their first distemper shots. They were without their mom so were pretty scared, trembling in the unfamiliar surroundings. They relaxed when I held them though--so they know and trust me.

Mama cat went into heat on the day the kittens turned one month old! I'm told this is fairly common and the only thing to do is ignore it. She continues to be a good mom when in the kittens' room. When let out into the other rooms she will start to yowl. I hope it's over soon: supposed to last 7-10 days.

Playtime is getting very important. They are learning to climb, play with each other and with toys, and to bite Mama cat's tail. At four weeks they were walking, and now, at five weeks they are scampering.



Exploring!



Climbing!



Pottying!



Eating and washing themselves like the miniature cats they have become.



Still like to nurse and cuddle with Mama Lacey.

May 15, 2015

Lacey's kittens: four weeks old!

This is a landmark week for kittens. We will be introducing them to solid (wet) food, and the litter box. So far one has licked wet food off a spoon for me, and the other just accepted a taste. He'd rather try eating the kitty litter or newspapers. They're still nursing, of course, and with just two, mama cat has plenty of milk. They are both over a pound in weight today, fat and sassy.

In the last few days, both of them have learned to climb out of their box, but not always back in again. So I cut the side so that I can open it up all the way during the day, and close the side back up with duct tape overnight. That way they will stay cozy and together at night. The box is about 15 " high with the side up all the way, and that should hold them for a while. I had the front side folded down to about 9 " high, up until now, and that's the height a four week old can scale. But it helped the mom look out and make sure no danger was in the area. She's on the alert in case one of my cats might possibly get into the room-although they can't and won't ever.

I have a litter box set up but so far only a little digging and tasting and no action. But that will happen.



They were wrestling and when they saw the camera, stopped and stared. Perfect for getting a good photo.




Box with the front part open.



Mama has to get used to babies walking around the room.



They can walk but don't run or scamper yet. Still a bit wobbly.

Oh yes and they have names now! The black one (male) is Kona and the tabby (female) is Maui. We just had a vacation in Hawaii. They take after Mama around the eyes: they both have the rather deep-set eyes she has, that look a little squared off at the tops.

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edited: I figured out how to post this video!

May 8, 2015

Lacey's kittens: three weeks old

Well, we lost the little sick kitten early on Monday morning. He was just too little to get so sick, and wasn't eating well and got weaker as the week wore on. Thankfully the other two are nursing well and seem okay other than a few sneezes. Mama is on Clavamox and they are gettting it in her milk. And actually if they get sick now, at three weeks, they can have their own meds by mouth if it becomes necessary.

Their eyes are open and they are toddling around inside the box and beginning to play with each other a little. I think we have one female and one male and will make a final decision on names pretty soon.


Family portrait






Tabby catches a snack while black one watches Mama eating.

May 1, 2015

Lacey's kittens: two weeks old

It's been a rough week. The mom came down with an upper respiratory infection (URI) and by Saturday we started her on an antibiotic. Then on Sunday one kitten got sick too and was so stuffy that she stopped nursing. (If they can't smell, they can't find the nipple no matter what you try.) So I have been feeding her kitten milk replacement formula since then. She's holding her own but hasn't grown like the other two--is pretty much the same weight as a week ago. But a friend is also fostering a mom and kittens who also got sick and they lost a few of the kittens, so I guess I should feel lucky. Her mama cat stopped eating so then had less milk and everything got much more complicated.

Yesterday tabby kitten number two started sneezing and getting congested. So far she is still nursing well--she's 14 days old rather than 9 like when the first one got sick. I have a steamer in the room, a heating pad, saline drops for their noses, ointment for their eyes, and the formula. I am getting up once every night to feed the first kitten, so I am feeding 11:30 p.m., 3:30 a.m., 7:30 a.m., and then every two or three hours during the day. So naturally I am looking forward to the little nose clearing up so she can get back to nursing on Mom. I think she is a female but am not sure at this point.

I will keep the mom on the antibiotic for another week because the kittens who are nursing will get some in the milk. That's what's sad about the first sick kitten--she is too little for any meds and isn't getting any in Mom's milk either. They can have meds at three weeks old, so if this goes on that long, that's what we'll do. A URI is caused by a virus, but research shows that antibiotics help lessen the severity of it.

The first photo shows the two that are nursing and the third sick one going up over Mom's back because she can't smell where the milk is. Second photo is of the three. Sick littlest one in the middle (tabby). The third photo is the other tabby who just started sneezing. She's bigger and has a little handlebar mustache pattern on her face. The third kitten is all black and is so far eating very well and has a round little tummy. You can't tell in these pictures but their eyes are halfway open now. Hopefully when they are better I can get some better pictures of their faces.