Month old babies with gunky eyes

[lcat4]

My husband takes care of a feral colony.  Queen, a very fertile cat who has become a master at not being trapped and neutered, had another litter of four kittens about a month ago.  We saw them for the first time yesterday.  Two of the kittens have their eyes covered with dried gunk, one worse than the other.  The mom is (at least today) keeping the kittens near the food dispenser so we can get to them easily to clean their eyes, but I don't want to do anything that might cause her to abandon the kittens and stop feeding them.

My husband said she was nursing while he was there, but ran away when she saw him.  Three of the kittens ran after her, but the one with the worst eyes wandered around a bit, looking for them.  Any suggestions for cleaning him up without disrupting the family?  Thanks for your help!

 

[red top rescue]

Unlike some wild animals, feral cats will not abandon their babies because they have human scent on them.  Yu can catch the babies and clean out their eyes with a normal saline solution, then insert Terramycin eye ointment (if you can find some, it's getting hard to find.  You could use a different antibiotic eye ointment if you can't find that one, but it's avaiable on eBay.  If you have a cooperative vet, you could get some eye ointment and some liquid antibiotics and give the appropriate dose to each kitten.