been a busy week

On Monday Mary called and asked if I would take in 8 kittens from the Hamilton shelter. OMG 8 babies, how could I say no. Later that afternoon she showed up with 9 very smelly baby kittens. We bathed and weighed them, then tried to feed them. Much to my surprise not 1 single baby wanted a bottle....they all fought it tooth and nail. SO I tried some food in a dish and low and behold all 9 babies ate. These were not bottle feeding kittens, but weaned kittens. That makes it a bit tougher. Bottle feeders are very easy to care for, don't need a ton of space and in general are much easier to manage (for me anyway). Got them all settled in and at 10pm, tried the bottle again, and again they all refused. So they have been eating soft food from dishes. I have tried the smallest ones a few times since, but not have taken it. Tuesday was a bit chaotic, trying to coral 9 running babies to make sure they all got fed and ate enough. So we decided to do this in shifts of 3, that way it was less to watch and certainly less to run after. This worked much better, took 3x as long but at least it was easier to know who was fed and who didn't eat well or at all etc etc. BY Tuesday night we had it down to a science and all was well.

Yesterday my mouse went for his first needles, poor guy was less then impressed with the thermometer they shoved up hi butt but he did very well. He will be on his way soon.

Today was difficult. I got up at 6:30, the kittens were running around and playing, normal kitten play. I commented to Jilly at how active they were at such an ungodly hour. Quickly after that 1 of the little girls fell over...she died about 45 mins later. Not sure what happened, I was shocked. She was JUST playing and now she is dying on my kitchen table. The vet did a post mortem and found that one of her lungs were collapsed slightly, and one of the walls of her heart were thinner than it should have been, Diagnosis: probable congenital heart defect :( she was one of my favorites.

As you can imagine, I won't have much time to blog this litter but I will try to do my best, given the stage they are at, there won't be much to blog about, nor will they be here a long time, I expect by next weekend we have all 8 placed in a home better suited to older kittens.