it's been a REALLY Hard week

This week has been really hard, stressful and quite nerve racking. On Monday Toby started with some minor diarreah which is pretty common among bottle feeding newborns, but like with any newborn that suffers from this, it can cause dehyrdation really fast and within hrs can be fatal if you are not paying attention. I did everything in my power to make it stop, fed ground rice, kaopectate, diluting formula but nothing I did worked. For 2 days this continued and it wasn't terrible. But Wednesday things went south, both him and Josie had it, Toby with the worst of it, it was just fountaining out of him, it was so bad and such a mess. No sooner would I clean his papers and I would have to do it again. I took them to the vet who tested them for just about everything and came up with nothing, which was good news. She couldn't offer any suggestions other than to keep doing what I was doing and gave the usual lecture "Kittens sometimes just fail and die quickly, no matter what we do". Needless to say those were not the words I wanted to hear. She did say that maybe adding some canned food to their formula would help "thicken" them up some, I tried that it didn't work. By Thursday both babies had lost so much weight, I really felt like it was hopeless and thought for sure they would both pass. Friday morning they were still alive and still had the runs....as a last resort I decided to stop the kitten food, and remove the canned formula and give them just the powdered KMR....this I am happy to say has been successful and today they are eating beautifully and pooping so much better than they were. I actually started to see improvement by yesterday afternoon. I am SOOOOO relieved and my confidence has returned. This has been such a bad year and these 2 started out so healthy and did so well, that I felt they were just the 2 babies I needed to restore my faith in myself as a bottle feeder, when things started to crash so did the faith in myself and abilities. The crisis is far from over but for now it has decreased and both bubs remain stable, though very dirty from their ordeal and their tiny bums are so sore. There was no point in dunking them in water anymore to clean them, am gonna give them til Monday to restore some strength and recover a bit more, then I will bathe them and get them cleaned up. Normally I would start weaning at 3 weeks of age, by adding food to their formula and then from dishes a week later, but given this past week I am going to hold off on weaning them until they are more ready. I am just not feeling to relaxed about doing anything more to their gut as it heals. they will be taking probiotics for the next week or so and once they are "normal" kittens without any issues than and only then will I start weaning and I imagine that unless they protest I will go very slowly with it. So thats my update, no weights for today as I weigh at 4pm and you really don't wanna know how their weights were all week, as it would probably make you cry and feel as anxious as I do about it all.

They can see!

Ok so they can't really see quite yet, their eyes DID open yesterday morning, but the vision will remain a bit hazy for a couple of more days, they are also quite light sensitive so they are kept in the dark still for a another couple of days, probably Monday I will give them more light other then for feedings. With some vision there also comes lots more activity, they have just started interacting with each other, but like human babies their movements don't have a whole lot of purpose just yet. And of course with more activity comes the demand for more milk, yesterday they demanded to eat about every 90 mins, today they are back on their 3hrs schedule. They might go as little as 2.5hrs though. Their weights are coming along rather nicely and I am guessing that by 4 weeks they will have reached that magical 1lbs mark. Currently they are: Josie - 253G a jump from yesterdays 238 Toby - is 266 an increase from his 250 yesterday. So they are gaining weight and they are doing well.

growing up

I didn't post yesterday I got so busy and by the time i remembered I was to tired. I just had surgery on July 5th so I am trying to recover from that as well. In reality there was nothing new to post anyway other then weights, which were: Josie - went from 218 to 230g a gain of 12G Toby - went from 240 to 250 a gain of 10G I knew their gains would taper off now that they have fully functioning bowels, once that catches up to them their weight will increase hugely as before.

Great day with the duo

Josie and Toby are doing amazingly well, they have kind of restored my faith in my ability to do this job. It's been a year fill with losses but these 2 are so strong and gaining weight I KNOW they are going to be fine. Today they have the corners of their eyes open and they started purring today so they are right on target for my estimated age of now 6 days old. I expect that Josie will have her eyes fully opened by Saturday and Toby I suspect will be a day behind. I love their eyes opening, they are so hazy and still can't see so well but they look so crosseyed and goofy looking lol. Toby has a bit of an ear fetish, when I held him up to my shoulder to burp him, he latched right on my ear and started sucking away. Neither baby had pooped for me since they arrived on Monday, so today they went off to the vet and learned how to give little tiny enemas to kittens. The vet did it this time and the results for Josie were amazing, pretty good for Toby as well but Josie impressed me the most with results. You are probably thinking I am crazy getting excited over poop but it's very dangerous to not get rid of that excess waste so YES I get excited. As long as the clogs have been removed I shouldn't ever have to put into practice what I learned today, maybe part of my excitement is relief, I really wasn't relishing the thought of shoving something up their tiny bums. I was kinda worried that since they did finally go that their weight loss wouldn't be anything great and perhaps maybe a small loss but when I weighed them today I got a happy surprise. Josie weighed 209G yesterday and 24hrs later she weighs 218, not a big gain by any means but 9g isn't what I was expecting. Toby was 212 24hrs ago and now is 240 a 28G gain, now that's a HUGE gain. I do expect though that once his bowels are cleaned out, it won't be THAT much of a gain, but hopefully he won't lose ALL of those 28 so very important grams. Both babies have put themselves on their own schedules of feeding every 3 hours thru the day, I listen for them to wake me at night as does our parrot (who returns their hollers with one of his own) but they didn't get us up last night at all and were not overly starved when they did finally get me up at 6am, and their weight gains signals that they are doing fine and they do know when they want to eat. No pics tonight, maybe tomorrow.

2 new beautiful babies

I got a call yesterday asking if I would take in 3 babies, whose mother had moved the kittens than ran off and hadn't been seen for a few hours. There were 4 babes, 1 died almost instantly after being rescued. They were fed by the founders a proper diet with good timing in between feeds. Kittens were to be dropped off from Burlington to Kitchener and arrive at my home later that evening. Around 9 pm they arrived, one died en route leaving 2 really nice, plump looking babies. Josie is a grey female, she is so friggen cute and loves to snuggle and be held. her weight at admission as 194G Toby is black male He is a little bigger than his sister at 205G. They are about 4-5 days old, their cords have fallen off but they still have the stump right at the base, this will go away in a couple of days. Toby appears to have a umbilical hernia which shouldn't be to much of an issue. If he was a female they would fix this on the spay but since he is male.... I am beginning to hate blogger. It used to be so easy to find a post I started and saved but it took a good while this time. I may move to another site or even to facebook to make it easier, I am a facebook pro so no trouble there. Anyway here are some pics. This is Toby And Josie and the brother sister duo snoozing after a feed Their weights are pretty good, they have been here for about 15hrs when I weighed them and they are as follows Josie was 194 Last night and today is 209 Toby was 205 last night and is 212 today. Not a great gain for him but a gain.

This has been a crap year

This year has been so hard on my heart. Last year I had such great success with kittens I felt confident this year would be the same. Sadly that just isn't so. Last Monday Jack started to get sick so we went to the vet and got a/b for him, Lexi and Krissy. While there the vet mentioned that someone had called the day before asking about 3 kittens they found in their yard. The vet told them who to call and what to do but they did nothing. We got their info from the vet and phoned them, they brought the 3 babies to Mary's and I picked up about 4:15pm. 3 beautiful long haired kittens wailing at the top of their little lungs. Weighed them all, all were under 200G, gave them a bottle and settled them in the infant boxes. 2 hours later, Alex a little black girl was lying on my kitchen table dying. Alex died about 6:50 that night, just over 2 hrs of being on my care. Harper was a funny looking kitten she had a white body, but a calico head, she also was dying, though I did get her though the night and the next day, but she died early Wednesday morning. I went from 6 kittens to 4 in 2 days. Had the people who found them done something, even given them water, they might have survived, but they did nothing and left them paying in the hot sun for 2 days. Deyhrdation set in and organ failure started and I wasn't able to repair it, sometimes you can, sometimes you can't it depends on how far along failure is. Jerry another little black boy was just beside himself, he wasn't ready to go with the others and wouldn't stop screaming, I called another rescue who had a litter about his age so off he went. He is doing well according to an e-mail received today. yesterday morning, Lexi didn't want her bottle, she is weaning and they drop bottles so I wasn't concerned. Later that morning I noticed that she was having some breathing issues. So off to the vet we go....they took x-rays of her wee lungs and the vet explained that x-rayed lungs appear dark. Little Lexi's were white. She was diagnosed with FIP (feline infectious peritonitis) she was given less than a 20% chance of survival, she was working so hard to breathe she had no energy for anything not food, not purring, not anything. It was decided that my sweet Lexi should be put down as she was suffering. I am devastated. Just the night before I took a pic of them eating and playing all 3 of them, had I known that would be the last night I would kiss her head before going to bed, I would have held her a little longer. She was the sweetest little girl and I admit she had some anger issues, she was fiesty and demanding and expected to be treated like the little princess she was. She was snobby, prissy and loud, but OMG she was adorable. I couldn't go with her to put her down, I save kittens I don't help in their demise, So another rescuer Michelle was kind enough to take her for me, I bawled like a baby, never have I cried so much over the loss of a kitten, I still cry today thinking about it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not cold and heartless, the other losses bother me, but Lexi's was different and I don't really know why. I asked my 9 year old how she felt if I didn't do rescue anymore, she helps me sometimes and it affects her life as well. I expected her to say "ok" or something similar, but she didn't..she said "you can't quit, the babies need you" When I told her that the deaths were all so sad and heartbreaking she said "maybe for the rest of the year 100 million will live and only 1 more will die and that will make it better". The logic from her was pretty amazing, she is a special needs kid so coming from her that statement was huge. So again I wrestled with not doing it anymore, but as usual I will carry on, and maybe she's right, though I hope I don't have a 100 million kittens this year. very few kittens survive bottle feeding, so the fact that I have only lost 9 out of 44 in the last year isn't really bad. 36 kittens have lived, thrived and done well, so if I look at it that way it makes me feel more accomplished. I just honestly don't think I can handle one more death, but I know it happens, sometimes love just isn't enough, sometimes their bodies have been thru so much before I get them and sometimes they have diseases that don't show until kittens start to get active and busy. However I can honestly say that each and ever kitten that has died in my care, they knew human touch, they knew full bellies but most of all they knew what love was and they received so much of it.... Jack and Krissy are doing very well, krissy is fully weaned and Jack was having weaning issues, he didn't want to lol. He liked his bottles to much, but in the past few days he has come leaps and bounds. he refused all but his breakfast bottle today and I expect he will refuse that one tomorrow. Soon they will be on their way to bigger and better things. I am unable to weigh either of them, as they simply refuse to stay in the weigh buckets, but I can assure you that they are doing well, Krissy is a wee fatty, Jack is long and thinner with the biggest paws, his paws are about 2 sizes bigger then he is. Both ar close to a lbs now, but not quite, if Krissy keeps eating like she is she will be there by tomorrow or Monday and Jack is not far behind her. This will be my last entry for this litter as there really isn't anything to report now, both are pretty much weaned and met their "newborn milestones". So I guess you will hear from me next litter. Take care and to those who have followed me, thank you and to those who haven't well you are missing a ton.

1 step forward 2 steps back...

Seems ot be the way things go for this group of kittens. I ended up giving them some pumpkin today b/c they seem to have a bit of the runs and we all know pumpkin is a natural and healthy fix for that. I suspect it has something to do with the amount they are eating as they are not ill. They are active, hyper, normal kittens. We'll see how that goes. Nobody is to interested in eating as much solids as they did yesterday which is sometimes how it goes but they are still taking their bottles well. NOT 1 puddle of poop or pee on the floor today, dare I say that we are litter trained? Not yet they need a few more days of no "oopsies" before they can be considered trained. I had been putting them in the kitten box at night but leaving them in the small room during the day, last night i left them in the small room with the heating pad and they did well, they had me up at the butt crack of dawn but thats ok I was due to get up soon anyway. I won't be posting as often now as there really isn't many changes as now they have met their milestones and nobody really cares to read if they have eaten each day. I will however post big updates and a final post to let you know when its time for them to leave here and move on in their lives. Their weights are still not great but they ARE getting better Lexi weighed 281 yesterday and was 285 today, a small gain but with the runs its not surprising, not to mention their activity leval has increased 10 fold. Jack was 354G yesterday and today weighed 376G so he had a huge gain Krissy yesterday was 302, today she is 313, a minor gain but a gain none the less.