Vet visit

York and Yeller are taking a trip to the vet today! They're due for their next set of vaccine boosters, which kittens get every two weeks. 

Aren't they looking so much better?! Hopefully they'll be big enough that they can start the oral ringworm meds. 

Hooray Tiny Cats!

York and Yeller are getting fixed tomorrow!

My two tiny boys are finally big enough to have their surgeries! 

We'll be going in tomorrow for the procedures, and then these boys will be ready for adoption! Woohoo!

Yeller and York LOVE cuddles!

Sorry for the quality; it was early morning and the lighting was not the best!

Introducing: York and Yeller (A.K.A. Itchy and Scratchy)

On Monday afternoon I got an urgent email from the Austin Pets Alive nursery; they were completely overflowing with kittens, and had no open cages left to take in more! They needed to find fosters for some of the kittens so that they could continue to pull from the area shelters and keep kittens from being put to sleep.

 

York

 Welcome to the foster-home little guys!

  

Playing catch-up: Mama Lucy got adopted!

I'm so sorry to all of y'all that have been looking for more pictures of kittens over the past couple of months; I haven't had any!

Mama Lucy's litter of four were all adopted (the boys went together, and so did the girls) and I was left with just Mama Lucy for almost two months!

I knew that it would take a while to get her adopted because we were OVERFLOWING with kittens in the shelter, and the older cats always get passed over when there are lots of babies. I COULD have taken Miss Lucy in to the shelter and let her stay there while waiting for adoption, but I was worried about how unhappy she would have been in that situation. She took such a long time to warm up to our housecat (Trinket) that I knew she'd end up in one of the small single-cat cages instead of the nicer "playroom" pens, and I knew that the noise and constant flow of strange smells and people would cause her to panic. She was so shy when I first brought her home, and I didn't want her to revert to her old behaviors. 

So insted she stayed with us at the house until two weeks ago. 

I finally got an email from a young lady who wanted to meet Miss Lucy, and it turned into a case of love at first sight! We drove all the way down to South Austin for a meet and greet, and ended up treking over to the shelter to fill out the adoption paperwork the same day! 

I'm so happy that Miss Lucy has a forever home, and her new mom seems absolutely smitten with her! 

Good luck in your new home Lulu!

 

Update: Gaile and Fae have been adopted!!

My two little girls got to meet their new family this week! 

On wed we met up with an awesome lady and her mother who wanted to meet Gaile and Fae. They loved the girls so much that they filled out the adoption paperwork on the spot! 

Since the girls have not had their spay surgeries yet they will remain with me until the first week of June. APA calls the process pre-adoption: the babies are spoken for and all adoption fees have been paid with the understanding that the kittens will go to their new home once they are 8 weeks old, fixed, and healthy. 

In honor of their fantastic good news, some pictures of my sweet girls! 

Video clips of the F3 litter and Gaile!

Lucy and Babies; 4 weeks old!

The babies turned four weeks old on Monday, and are already HUGE compared to when they were born! All of the little babies are right around a pound in weight, and Mama Lucy is as proud of them as ever.

Lucy and babes stretching their legs

The kittens have decided that they're ready to explore! They love to roam around outside their little pen, as long as Mama is close by. 

Lucy and babies are doing great!

Little Gul is off with his new foster to regain some strength and weight. Meanwhile Mama Lucy and her four babes are doing fantastic! 

The babies have all opened their eyes and are starting to get a LOT more active. They're still very wobbly on their feet, but that's no reason not to play! The babies love to gnaw on each other and play wrestle. 

Today I set up a slightly larger crate for them, and made a little kitten patio where they can crawl and climb. Mama Lucy isn't too sure of the new space, but the babies seem to like to extra room!

Mama has been hanging out on the little "cat-tio" so far, but seems to like it for napping and nursing. 

Rolly Polly Babies

These little ones have the wiggles!

Mama Lucy and babies: update on little Gul

Over the weekend little Gul took a bit of a turn for the worse; he stopped latching on to mama Lucy and stopped nursing. Luckily I had already been supplementing him with formula and weighing him regularly or else I might not have caught his weight loss. He dropped below the weight he was when I first picked him up! Poor little guy has been hovering between 75g and 80g, which is severely underweight even for a newborn kitten. I also noticed that he was constipated and that mama Lucy had not been able to get him to have a bowel movement. I stimulated him with a warm wet paper towl and after about 15 minutes of trying to get him to go to the bathroom, he finally strained out a tiny white piece of feces. He was also bleeding from his poor little bottom. I called the clinic and we rushed him in to see the vet. They decided that he was going to need tube feeding, and gave him an enema to try and ease his constipation. Little Gul will be staying with another foster who is more experienced with tube feeding until he stabilizes enough to try and come back with mama Lucy.

Lucy is pretty upset that one of her babies is missing (even an adopted baby) and has started trying to move the rest of the kittens to new hiding places (e.g. the corner of my closet.) 

The rest of the babies are quite fat and healthy, including Gul's little sister Gaile. Lucy's babies are a week old today and are all close to 200g already! Baby Figg is the biggest, at 210g!! 

In order to try and calm mama down I'll be weighing the rest of the babies less frequently and checking on them only a few times a day; mama needs her safety and privacy with the rest of her babies in order to help relieve her stress. 

My foster mentor has said that she'll keep me up to date on how little Gul is doing, and we're all hoping for the best! 

More babies for Mama Lucy!

So yesterday we drove down to the Austin Pets Alive! clinic to pick up four more orphaned newborns! Two sets of two!!

Unfortunately two of the babies didn't make it. They were transported from out of town and the person who brought them in didn't give them any kind of heat source. They also went without food for four hours. One of the babies was already fading on arrival to the clinic and she passed shortly before I took the rest of the babies home. Her brother fought to last a little longer, but about an hour after we got him home he stopped breathing. Both babies were warm and comfortable at the end.

The other two however are doing fantastic! They have been named Gul and Gaile, and have made themselves quite at home with their new mama and siblings. They're quite a bit smaller than Lucy's babies, but they'll catch up quickly! They're on some antibiotics as a precaution because both the Austin Animal Center and the Austin Pets Alive clinic can't guarantee that there aren't some germy bugs flying around. The antibiotics will just make sure that neither of the new babies comes down with anything. Both new kittens are nursing really well and are fighting off the bigger babies for their spots on the nipple.

Mama Lucy wasn't fazed at all by the new arrivals; in fact she was trying to get to the new babies before I even got the carrier open! She started licking and cleaning them and carried them into the nest herself. Yet again all I can say is Good Job Mama!

Happy Birthday Babies!

Mama Lucy gave birth to the F3 litter today: Fawkes, Fae, and Figg!

Three babies!

We're not sure yet if there are more to come but we have three healthy babies so far! 

Baby 1 was born at 11:27 and weighed 94g

Baby 2 was born at 12:01 and weighed 117g

Baby 3 was born at 12:27 and weighed 113g