Have a heart and lend a hand!

Our supplies wishlist is officially up and running!

Foster Kitten Amazon Wishlist


Fostering kittens is hard work, and the cost of supplies can add up very quickly! If you'd like to help out our local foster community please consider a donation of food or supplies. All donations made through my wishlist will be taken to the Williamson County Regional Animal Shelter. With your help we can continue to rescue these tiny kittens!

The shelter can always use supplies for its older residents too! You can send new or gently used pet supplies directly to WCRAS, or make a donation from their website.

If you live in the area stop by and visit the Shelter!
  
Location:
1855 S.E. Innerloop
Georgetown, TX 78626
(512) 943-3322
Driving Directions
Hours
Mon - Fri 12PM-6PM
Sat & Sun 11AM-5PM

A Close Call for Squeak

We almost lost Squeak last night. He aspirated/inhaled a bunch of formula and couldn’t breathe. I managed to get his lungs clear and his breathing is back to normal, but it was a close call.

We headed up to the shelter this morning to get him looked over and give him some preventative antibiotics. His heartbeat was strong and breathing sounded good. The antibiotics should help keep him from getting pneumonia or a respiratory infection.

There’s still a chance that his body could react poorly, but it looks like he may pull through.

Situations like this are why it is SO important to make sure that you are bottle-feeding correctly; if a kitten aspirates (breathes in) the formula, even just a small amount, it can be fatal. If the liquid in their lungs in not cleared immediately their breathing could stop. This is not the kind of care/advice that I feel comfortable sharing online since I am NOT a trained professional; talk to a vet about what to do if your pet/foster stops breathing.

The after-care is just as important as the immediate emergency response. Any amount of liquid in the lungs can cause pneumonia or a nasty respiratory infection. Get the animal stable and then get them to a vet! Squeak was given an injection of penicillin, but the antibiotic used may vary depending on the age, weight, and size of your animal.

About three years ago we lost our little foster kitten Evelyn to this exact nightmare scenario; she aspirated her formula and stopped breathing. We managed to get her breathing again and she survived the night, but the stress to her body was too much and the next day she went into shock and died.

Sometimes even knowing the right actions to take can't prevent something bad from happening. The hardest part about fostering bottle babies is that some of them aren't going to make it. I'll be completely honest and say that it makes you question whether or not you want to keep doing it. A lot of rescue people and fosters won't take bottle babies because it's very scary and very intense. Always remember to take as much care of yourself as you do of you animals; without you they wouldn't have the chance to live.

Fading Kitten Syndrome - Resources and Links

As promised, here is some additional information about Fading Kittens.

The Kitten Lady's guide to Fading Kittens

PetMD Fading Kitten Syndrome



Symptoms of FKS:
• Extreme lethargy — unable to stand or hold head up, not responding when touched
• Body feels cool to the touch (not just insides of ears – all over)
• Panting or gasping for breath
• Meowing/crying out in distress

If you see these symptoms, it is crucial that you take the following steps NOW:

Step 1: GET KITTEN WARM
Grab your heating pad and a towel. Place the towel over the heating pad, and place kitten
on top of towel. Roll heating pad up to create a “kitten burrito” – like you’re swaddling an
infant. Leave the kitten’s face exposed, and do not remove kitten from the burrito even if
he/she struggles and cries to get out! Make sure the heating pad is still on the low setting.
* If you don’t have a heating pad, you can either:
a) Keep your dryer running full of towels. Grab a new hot one every 5 minutes and wrap it around the
“burrito” towel. After 5 minutes, trade that towel out for a new hot one. Don’t remove the “burrito”
towel.
b) Fill 2 socks full of rice, tie the ends so it doesn’t spill out. Throw them in the microwave for 3 minutes.
Keep them next to the kitten on the outside of the burrito towel. Every 30 minutes reheat one sock
and leave the other next to the kitten so she doesn’t cool off.

Step 2: GET KITTEN’S BLOOD SUGAR UP
Grab a small bowl and fill it with either corn syrup (Karo, etc), or sugar water. The more
sugar content, the better. Make sure you have your syringe handy. Warm the contents up
in the microwave for a few seconds until the liquid is a bit above room temperature. You
will administer this sugar water (with the syringe) to the kitten while he/she is in the burrito.
Give the kitten about 1 drop every 3 minutes. If you do not have a small medicine syringe, you will need to rub the karo/sugar water on the kittens gums.

The process can take hours, so be prepared to administer the steps outlined above for anywhere from one to three to even five hours.

 Remember, this is the same type of care that a kitten will get from a Vet, and the delay in care while driving to the vet/animal hospital could be the difference between fading and surviving. You can take the kitten to see the vet after they come out of the fade!

Pip and Squeak - 5 days old

Taking care of tiny kittens is a HUGE amount of work. I've had Pip and Squeak since Sunday afternoon and I'm already completely exhausted!

Here's what the average day looks like:

4am - Bottle-feed, stimulate and clean, check bedding
7am - Bottle-feed, stimulate and clean, check bedding, rinse Squeak's eyes and apply meds
        - Get my own breakfast/coffee, get the kid up for breakfast, feed the housecats
9am - Bottle-feed, stimulate and clean, check bedding, reheat Snuggle-disk (secondary heat source)
11am - Bottlfe-feed, stimulate and clean, check bedding
Noon - Get my lunch, kiddo gets lunch, clean dishes/kitchen, clean housecat litterboxes
1pm - Bottle-feed, stimulate and clean, check bedding, rinse Sqeak's eyes and apply meds
3pm - Bottle-feed, stimulate and clean, check bedding
5pm - Bottle-feed, stimulate and clean, check bedding
6pm - Start dinner for family
7pm - Bottle-feed, stimulate and clean, check bedding, rinse Squeak's eyes and apply meds
        - Feed family, clean up kitchen/dishes
10pm - Bottle-feed, stimulate and clean, check bedding, reheat Snuggle-disk
Midnight - Bottle-feed, stimulate and clean, check bedding

At any given point during the day the kittens' blood-sugar could drop and they can start to fade; you have to be on constant alert and watch for signs of decreased activity, lack of responsiveness, or drop in body temperature. If a kitten begins to fade there is an emergency protocol that must be followed, and the intensive care lasts until the kitten comes out of the fade (which could be hours). Even a trip to the vet could delay the life-saving care and cause the kitten to die, so you have to be prepared to do it yourself at home. I'll post a link to some resources about Fading Kitten Syndrome and will probably do a full post about it in the next few days.

Anything else that needs to get done during the day gets squeezed into the two-hour gaps between feedings. The reason I'm feeding every two hours as opposed to every three is because these kittens are only a few days old; as they gain weight and get a little more stable it will be safe to move their mealtimes back a little bit.

Caring for kittens is fun, but it is a TON of work. If you're going to bring kittens home to care for, especially newborns, it's a good idea to be aware of the work-load ahead of time. Bottle-baby kittens need full-time care just like newborn human babies. Fostering neonatal kittens is definitely not for everyone, so think carefully about whether or not you can meet their needs before you bring bottle babies into your home.

Luckily there are people all over the globe who are willing to do insane amounts of work to care for tiny kittens; your local shelters and rescue organizations will probably have contact information for the people in your area who can take in kittens in an emergency.

To remind you why the work is necessary, I give you more precious pictures of my current babies:

Tiny kitten eye infection

Little Squeaks has a nasty eye infection: neonatal ophthalmia (a form of conjunctivitis contracted when the baby passes through the birth canal of a momma cat with a kitty STD).
It causes puss to build up in the unopened eyes of newborn kittens and can cause everything from corneal scaring to blindness, and in extreme cases can even cause a systemic infection that can be fatal.

We were lucky and caught it early! I used a warm moist tissue to clean away a bunch of the crusty buildup and was able to very carefully open Squeak’s eyelids manually. Poor baby had so much nasty gunk in his eyes! I took him to the shelter and the wonderful vet tech Alexis helped me rinse out his eyes with saline.

He’ll be getting antibiotic ointment put in his eyes multiple times per day, and I’ll continue to clean his little eyes to keep the discharge from building up again.

The sweet little guy doesn’t like the treatment at all, but is all purrs as soon as I’m done.

If you think a kitten has this kind of eye infection take them to a vet immediately! There are a number of other conditions that look very similar and it’s very important to make sure a kitten gets the proper treatment as quickly as possible.

Update: Ginger and Snap

When last we left you Ginger and Snap were nearing the end of their foster-stay and were almost completely recovered from their ringworm.

Ginger was adopted less than 24 hours after his neuter surgery; he went home with a lovely family with a young daughter.

Snap had a hard time coming out of his shell. He spent two days at the shelter before being moved to one of the offsite adoption locations, where he spent another two days cowering and hiding in his cage. I came to visit him on the fifth day and realized that he was never going to get adopted if his situation wasn't addressed; my husband and I talked with the shelter and decided to bring him back to our house to continue fostering. The plan was to have potential adopters come visit him in our home, in the hopes that being somewhere familiar would help him be less scared.

That same evening my husband surprised me with my first Christmas present (a month early). Snap would be staying with us permanently!

So our little family grew from Three+Cat to Three+Two(Cats!) We're so happy to have this little love bug as a permanent addition to our home. Trinket is thrilled to have a buddy to play with and has started acting like a crazy kitten again, and Snap spends his time being utterly and completely spoiled. Happy Endings all around~!

Aaaaaand We're Back! Introducing Pip and Squeak

Sorry for the lack of updates over the past few months; I picked up a bunch of new volunteer responsibilites at the Williamson County Regional Animal Shelter and have been working with them on their Offsite Adoption Team. I've also been designated as the Lead Volunteer on the Ringworm team, on top of my fostering and other volunteer duties. Top that off with the Holidays and it's been a crazy season!

But enough of that, let's get to why you're here: Cats and Kittens!

Introducing two of our first babies this kitten season, Pip and Squeak

These two tiny babes are less than a week old; their eyes are still shut tight and they still have tiny bits of their cords stuck to their bellies.

After a brief adjustment period they're both eating like champs! It took them a little while to get used to the bottles and the taste of the formula, so their meal-times for the first day and a half were a little difficult.

Since these kittens are so young they are being fed every 2-3 hours. The kitten formula has to be reheated at every meal so their bodies can digest it more easily. Every feeding follows the same pattern:
1. Weigh the kitten and record the pre-feeding weight
2. Feed the kitten at least 5% of its body weight (so for these aprox 100 gram kittens, that's 5 grams per feeding)
3. Weigh the kitten again to make sure the kitten has eaten the proper ammount.
4. Stimulate the kittens genitals so that it can pee/poop (the most glamourous part of bottle-baby fostering)
5. Make sure no traces of milk are left on the kitten. The formula dried HARD and will have to be cut out of the fur if it is not cleaned off early.

I also like to make sure that my kittens stay nice and warm during their feedings, so I have a heating pad (on low) placed on the table with a blanket on it. The number one reason kittens won't eat is because they're too cold!




Last little note here, just to clear up a very common (and dangerous) mistake.

This stuff is NOT milk for kittens! This is NOT formula! Do NOT give this to kittens!!!!! 

If you are going to feed kittens, you need to feed them a milk replacement supplement. Whiskas Cat Milk is NOT safe for kittens, nor is any other commecially available milk. I can't tell you the number of times kittens have been brought in and have only been fed with this stuff or with cow's milk; most of the time, they don't make it. Cow's milk is NEVER acceptable to give to a cat, and the Whiskas milk is a TREAT MEANT FOR ADULT CATS!



Luckily most pet stores (and even some grocery stores) sell actual kitten formula now, even if they don't carry the best stuff. Here's what you want to look for:

The GNC, KMR and Breeders Edge powdered formula all have comparable nutritional benefits and seem to be of equal quality. While the Breeders Edge formula is a little harder to find, KMR and GNC formula are carried by lots of stores (including WalMart). DO NOT buy the Hartz kitten formula: it is NOT a good substitute, and if you look closely at their find print it is stated that it's meant as a supplement only and NOT as a nutritionally complete meal-replacement. The better formulas are a bit more expensive, but they are WORTH IT!!!! I would definitely reccomend getting the powdered formula instead of the pre-mixed liquid but the liquid stuff can work in a pinch.

Regardless of what kind of formula you choose make sure you read ALL of the instructions and follow them to the letter. Once you've started with a formula, stick with it. Changing from one to the other can cause massive digestive upset for the kittens and can be very traumatic.