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- Dec 11, 2014
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Hi! I normally only raise neutered males, so this is an experience I haven't had since childhood, eons ago, and I need some help!
For a little background, I currently live in the rural area where I grew up. People dump unwanted animals often. We need community cats to help keep the mouse/pest situation at bay, so my county encourages TNR. We also lost all but 1 shelter, so that's a problem, too (they don't even take feral cats).
So I try to feed and TNR the homeless cats on my own dime, even though I don't always have a job because of my health. One female that's nice to me but very, very mean to my cats (attacks them for looking at her) got pregnant before I could get her to the vet. By the time I got her there, my vet said she was too far along to abort the litter to spay her. She had a litter of 6 on a neighbor's porch 9/1; I didn't find them until the next morning. They seemed fine to me, but before I could move them, 3 died. So I brought the others & mom, who I call Emma, to my spare bedroom, which is a storage room. Right now, my orthopedic problems are so bad, I really couldn't prepare the room to house kittens, but they're still very young. (Attaching Pic of kittens at 4d.o.)
Anyway, the past 2 days, Emma has been hanging around downstairs a lot. At first I thought she was just going stir crazy cooped up with the babies, but I noticed today that her breasts looked deflated. I picked her up and squeezed her nipples a bit, but nothing happened, except one of them seemed to make her mad. I had purchased a kitten-feeding kit (because she had isolated the one female kitten once & wasn't feeding her, but I reintroduced her), so I took some KMR upstairs & checked to see if each baby was hungry but they refused. I also had a dropper, and the girl did drink a little from the dropper. I moved them into a larger box, thinking maybe Emma was having trouble getting in to feed in the smaller box as they are getting bigger. Emma seemed more interested in eating her own food than feeding her babies, so I told her I'd go get her more food if she nursed while I was gone & closed the door behind me.
When I came back, she was nursing the 2 boys right in front of the door, which is clear across the room from their box! The girl wasn't in my sight, but I could hear her crying from behind some of my big boxes! I asked Emma to go get her but she just stood there, panting, so I moved the boxes & got the girl & grabbed the boys & put all 3 back in their box. I told Emma, you are homeless, if this is your way of saying you want to leave because I'm trying to help you feed your babies, the answer is no, you're going nowhere. I've been feeding Emma baby food or mama & baby food since 9/2, btw.
Emma doesn't know this, but I have zero intentions of letting these kittens become homeless community cats. When they are old enough, I'm putting them up for adoption or taking them to a No-Kill shelter in an urban area where kittens have an excellent chance of getting into good homes. Emma is also getting spayed ASAP.
I went looking for advice on what to do if the mama cat dried up before the kittens are weanable age, and the *only* similar story was Cupcake1234516's of 2006. In fact, her story was 100% spot-on exactly what I'm going through right now with Emma & her little ones. They, too, acted like they were full when I tried to feed them. When I put one of them up to her belly to see if he nursed, he tried 5 nipples before he was satisfied! You don't keep trying different nipples if you're satisfied with the ones before #5! I've been weighing them on my kitchen scale - they were gaining weight really good up until the past couple of days, now they seem to be leveling off (despite the girl looking smaller than the boys, all are around 300 gms). But still, they seem to be disinterested in the formula. I will keep trying it, but is there anything else I can or should be doing to make sure they survive? I start a new job in 2 days, but it's work from home, and it's actually a rehire from the job I was doing earlier this year, but I won't be at the cats' beck-and-call as much once I'm working again. I'm sorry for writing so much, but I don't get to communicate with too many humans these days. I can't wait for my job to start!
Btw, I do have names for the kittens. The girl is Missy, that's the calico, just like her mama. The little gray & white one is Little Benny (that was my 1.5yo George's original name, this one almost looks just like him), & the light ginger is Herb - because he's a boy, so he couldn't be Peaches LOL.
For a little background, I currently live in the rural area where I grew up. People dump unwanted animals often. We need community cats to help keep the mouse/pest situation at bay, so my county encourages TNR. We also lost all but 1 shelter, so that's a problem, too (they don't even take feral cats).
So I try to feed and TNR the homeless cats on my own dime, even though I don't always have a job because of my health. One female that's nice to me but very, very mean to my cats (attacks them for looking at her) got pregnant before I could get her to the vet. By the time I got her there, my vet said she was too far along to abort the litter to spay her. She had a litter of 6 on a neighbor's porch 9/1; I didn't find them until the next morning. They seemed fine to me, but before I could move them, 3 died. So I brought the others & mom, who I call Emma, to my spare bedroom, which is a storage room. Right now, my orthopedic problems are so bad, I really couldn't prepare the room to house kittens, but they're still very young. (Attaching Pic of kittens at 4d.o.)
Anyway, the past 2 days, Emma has been hanging around downstairs a lot. At first I thought she was just going stir crazy cooped up with the babies, but I noticed today that her breasts looked deflated. I picked her up and squeezed her nipples a bit, but nothing happened, except one of them seemed to make her mad. I had purchased a kitten-feeding kit (because she had isolated the one female kitten once & wasn't feeding her, but I reintroduced her), so I took some KMR upstairs & checked to see if each baby was hungry but they refused. I also had a dropper, and the girl did drink a little from the dropper. I moved them into a larger box, thinking maybe Emma was having trouble getting in to feed in the smaller box as they are getting bigger. Emma seemed more interested in eating her own food than feeding her babies, so I told her I'd go get her more food if she nursed while I was gone & closed the door behind me.
When I came back, she was nursing the 2 boys right in front of the door, which is clear across the room from their box! The girl wasn't in my sight, but I could hear her crying from behind some of my big boxes! I asked Emma to go get her but she just stood there, panting, so I moved the boxes & got the girl & grabbed the boys & put all 3 back in their box. I told Emma, you are homeless, if this is your way of saying you want to leave because I'm trying to help you feed your babies, the answer is no, you're going nowhere. I've been feeding Emma baby food or mama & baby food since 9/2, btw.
Emma doesn't know this, but I have zero intentions of letting these kittens become homeless community cats. When they are old enough, I'm putting them up for adoption or taking them to a No-Kill shelter in an urban area where kittens have an excellent chance of getting into good homes. Emma is also getting spayed ASAP.
I went looking for advice on what to do if the mama cat dried up before the kittens are weanable age, and the *only* similar story was Cupcake1234516's of 2006. In fact, her story was 100% spot-on exactly what I'm going through right now with Emma & her little ones. They, too, acted like they were full when I tried to feed them. When I put one of them up to her belly to see if he nursed, he tried 5 nipples before he was satisfied! You don't keep trying different nipples if you're satisfied with the ones before #5! I've been weighing them on my kitchen scale - they were gaining weight really good up until the past couple of days, now they seem to be leveling off (despite the girl looking smaller than the boys, all are around 300 gms). But still, they seem to be disinterested in the formula. I will keep trying it, but is there anything else I can or should be doing to make sure they survive? I start a new job in 2 days, but it's work from home, and it's actually a rehire from the job I was doing earlier this year, but I won't be at the cats' beck-and-call as much once I'm working again. I'm sorry for writing so much, but I don't get to communicate with too many humans these days. I can't wait for my job to start!
Btw, I do have names for the kittens. The girl is Missy, that's the calico, just like her mama. The little gray & white one is Little Benny (that was my 1.5yo George's original name, this one almost looks just like him), & the light ginger is Herb - because he's a boy, so he couldn't be Peaches LOL.
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