This is my very first time fostering a kitten, and evidently I have no idea what the heck I'm doing.
My cat, Calypso, she was a stray when we found her running around our neighborhood (She wasnt even two months old when we noticed her), so we started feeding her and she became part of our cat family. She got pregnant around the time she turned one, and she had 5 kittens. We gave all of them away to good homes. About 8 months later, one of the women we have to cats to (The twins, both black and white) called us and told us her landlord said she could only have 3 cats, so we went and picked him up. His name is Trouble.
Just recently (Like, not even two weeks ago), Calypso had another litter of kittens. This time, it was only three. She set up shop in the bottom cabinet in my moms room. She and the kittens were fine for about 8 days, and then she moved them from the cabinet to under the desk. (We assumed it was to keep them safer and farther away from the door of my moms room, and so it would be harder for my dog to get to them. She doesn't like him much.) Late that night, my mom calls me screaming into her room. Two of the kittens had blood on them and were dead. We didn't know what happened. I had my roommate Briana drive me to the only pet hospital open at 9pm, and they cleaned the kitten, looked at the wounds and told us it was going to be okay. They gave us ointment and some oral antibiotics. I tried to get Calypso to take the kitten back, but she wanted nothing to do with it anymore. The baby now, is alive and well, but I'm having some issues.
I know the baby is hungry, because I see it trying to nurse on the blankets in its box (It's bot a heating pad in there and like, three felt blankets). However, even with all the advice I've gotten from the internet, I cant seem to get it to willingly suck on the nipple from the bottle we have. We bought a kitten nursing kit, so I know the nipples are the right size and all that. It swallows the formula when I put the nipples in its mouth, so I know it has no trouble swallowing, but it refuses to suckle on it? I've gotten it to suckle on it about three times now, if only briefly, but I'm having a difficult time here because I thought kittens were supposed to be rather eager to eat, and this one seems to want nothing to do with it.
I really want to do this right. It was hard enough to lose the other two, I don't want to lose the last one as well.
My cat, Calypso, she was a stray when we found her running around our neighborhood (She wasnt even two months old when we noticed her), so we started feeding her and she became part of our cat family. She got pregnant around the time she turned one, and she had 5 kittens. We gave all of them away to good homes. About 8 months later, one of the women we have to cats to (The twins, both black and white) called us and told us her landlord said she could only have 3 cats, so we went and picked him up. His name is Trouble.
Just recently (Like, not even two weeks ago), Calypso had another litter of kittens. This time, it was only three. She set up shop in the bottom cabinet in my moms room. She and the kittens were fine for about 8 days, and then she moved them from the cabinet to under the desk. (We assumed it was to keep them safer and farther away from the door of my moms room, and so it would be harder for my dog to get to them. She doesn't like him much.) Late that night, my mom calls me screaming into her room. Two of the kittens had blood on them and were dead. We didn't know what happened. I had my roommate Briana drive me to the only pet hospital open at 9pm, and they cleaned the kitten, looked at the wounds and told us it was going to be okay. They gave us ointment and some oral antibiotics. I tried to get Calypso to take the kitten back, but she wanted nothing to do with it anymore. The baby now, is alive and well, but I'm having some issues.
I know the baby is hungry, because I see it trying to nurse on the blankets in its box (It's bot a heating pad in there and like, three felt blankets). However, even with all the advice I've gotten from the internet, I cant seem to get it to willingly suck on the nipple from the bottle we have. We bought a kitten nursing kit, so I know the nipples are the right size and all that. It swallows the formula when I put the nipples in its mouth, so I know it has no trouble swallowing, but it refuses to suckle on it? I've gotten it to suckle on it about three times now, if only briefly, but I'm having a difficult time here because I thought kittens were supposed to be rather eager to eat, and this one seems to want nothing to do with it.
I really want to do this right. It was hard enough to lose the other two, I don't want to lose the last one as well.
