Infant Kittens Found
Infant Kittens Found
March 23, 2003 8PM
I now now have three kittens, maybe almost 2 weeks old. A gray one and two white ones. They were found in my neighbor’s shed in a plastic pail, under a plastic drop cloth, while she and my husband were cleaning out her junk. The mother cat is the white cat I have been feeding for the past three or so weeks, whom I call Pretty Little Kitty. She seems to be semi-feral.
There were four kittens at first (see picture on the left), but she took one away and ran off with it after I had put the kittens in a box and then placed in the little cat house (like a dog house) my husband had built in case that white cat would want a shelter when she came into our yard. I was hoping to catch her when she came, but she waited until I had to go use the bathroom to grab one of her kittens. My neighbor’s shed no longer exists, as my neighbor was taking it down when the kittens were found. I hope the mother cat found a good, safe home to bring that kitten to.
The mother cat didn’t come back after three hours from when she made off with the one kitten, so since it was getting cold and breezy, and will be in the mid 30’s tonight with a frost advisory, I didn’t know what to do, so I brought the remaining three kittens inside. The mother cat did finally make an appearance in my yard a while ago, but I wasn’t sure how good it would be to put the kittens back out in the cool air, so I didn’t.
Plus, Stumpy, the stray tail-less tom cat was hanging around by then, so I wasn’t sure they would be safe (he might be the father, though, but that doesn’t mean he would be nice to them).
My worries: The kittens have basically been sleeping since found at around 2:00- 2:30. It’s now 8:00. Teeny kittens need to eat every few hours. They did wake up when I picked each up to examine them, mewled, squirmed with good strength, then went back to sleep when put back in their nest box. They seem very healthy. They have changed positions several times, and have stretched their arms and legs out, so they seem to have energy. They can crawl. I tried to feed them with a kitten bottle and KMR, but they didn’t want to eat- just want to sleep. One of them got very upset at being disturbed, squirming, crying a lot and trying to crawl up me, so I put it back with it’s siblings, and it feel peacefully asleep again.
So, do I just let them keep on sleeping, or do I wake them and try to make them eat? I read on a site about orphan kittens that when first found, they might not be hungry for a while as real mother’s milk “lasts” longer than KMR.
Next worry: One of the kittens still has shriveled umbilical cord attached. It’s about 1 1/2 inches long, and black. Do I try to do something, or just leave it?
Third worry: Will they live? I think they are almost two weeks old, but may be younger, if the umbilical cord stump is still there. Though, there wasn’t hardly any room in that bucket for the mother cat to fit, let along fit in and do good grooming jobs on the four kittens. Their eyes are shut still, but two of them semi- opened an eye for a second or two. One of them peed on it’s own. Their ears are still curled over. They are nicely furred. That would make them just under two weeks old.
Fourth worry: What if they won’t suckle? Do I just open their mouths and squeeze a drop or two at a time in?
One of the biggest problems is making the correct sized hole in the nipples!! The websites say to make it so one drop can come out when held upside down. You would think this would be easy, but it’s not. It takes a lot more than a pin to make the correct sized hole, a pin hole which is what the package directions say to do. It is also too easy to make a hole too large. Guess that’s why each bottle came with three nipples. Two for practice. For anyone else who will be bottle feeding kittens, don’t follow the bottle package directions. The kittens will starve unless they are some mighty powerful suckers. I don’t understand why the nipples don’t come with holes already in them.
2 hours later, 10PM
My next big problem is that the kittens are squirming and fighting with a lot more strength than I imagined they could. Mostly the two white ones, in particular the smallest one. Man do they squirm! Should I forcefully hold them in place, forcing their heads to face the nipple? They keep turning their heads from it. They try very determinedly to crawl up my shoulder and bury themselves in my hair and when I let them, seem to be rooting for nipple. This is a two person job. Good thing my husband is here (but he will be at work tomorrow.). We managed to get a few drops of KMR in each kitten, with me trying to keep them still, and him trying to get the nipple in their mouths. Two of them somewhat sucked. Not quite sucking, but I have hope they will sooner than later. For the third, we had to finally use an eye dropper to drip the drops in it’s mouth after we managed to get opened. Even infant kittens have strong jaws!
It is easy to get them to pee though, so I had some success. You don’t have to rub much at all. I used a wet washcloth. And, it squirts a bit of a distance, I discovered. For some reason, I expected little dribbles to occur while I was rubbing. What happens is that is does start when you are rubbing, but if you move the cloth, it shoots out several inches. So, for anyone else who will be doing this, keep the washcloth close to the area
for longer than you might think. So, they peed twice today, and each got a few drops of KMR. Now they are snuggled up sleeping again. I’ll wake them in a while to try to get more drops of KMR into them. Don’t want them dehydrated and we humans will have to sleep at some point. I think they all are males.
I called the after hours emergency vet, for some tips on how to get the kittens to eat, but they had no help to offer. The person on the phone just said to keep trying. I’m finding several good articles on the internet about orphaned, infant kittens, and am getting some good tips from the articles.