Its been a long couple of weeks, and it doesnt seem to be getting any shorter or more restful. Lets see... The story of the kittens. The short version- Friday, we heard about a litter of wet kittens needing a home and took them in. Theyre still bottle feeding, warm, dry, and growing now. :) TL;DR Our dear friend Brittany Gill passed away after an epic battle with a rare and aggressive cancer the weekend before last. Then Tuesday, our heat pump went on the fritz again, despite being serviced just a couple months ago. The AC guy we use found a cremated mouse under the condensor, apparently having committed suicide. We were lucky it was just a condensor and not the whole unit. Clearly mice close to the house mean the barn cats arent doing their job. Oh, thats right! Its because theyre busy holding down the porch, being lazy. So, I told Nick we needed more barn cats. My good friend, Laura Jensen, put us in contact with Planned Pethood of Georgia, who very quickly helped us locate and adopt some shy, semi-feral cats. While we were picking them up, Nick was talked into taking a special case, an older girl who had a hard life and hard to get adopted out as she was friendly, but hissy when approached. Three instead of two came home on Thursday. Friday afternoon, we learned of a litter of soaking wet kittens supposedly found out on a lawn, no mama in sight. The story given, and directions given got fishier and more suspect as time went by. Kittens were only put in a box in a carport, not dried off, not brought inside. Kittens were found on a lawn, in the middle of a rainstorm. Mind you, the kittens were mud colored. Id not have seen them on a lawn from a window. From my time volunteering in a domestic violence crisis center, my gut says they were part of a domestic violence situation, likely someone attempted to drown them. Regardless, they needed out of there and get care fast. So, thats what we did on Friday, instead of taking the time to honor our friend Brittany while her memorial was happening in Oregon. Perhaps honoring life was the best way t celebrate Bs life. So, thats how we came to double our number of cats in just 24 hours, and be bottle feeding a litter of 3 week old kittens. (I clearly must be insane!) The first 24 hours with the kittens was quite the fight. They were hungry- hadnt eaten in way too many hours. They were wet and hypothermic. I wore the runt in my shirt when we ran into the store to pick up kitten formula. The fight to keep him alive really kicked into high gear on Saturday, when his little body started shutting down. At one point, he refused food for many hours and became so weak he couldnt open his eyes. We all took turns wearing him Saturday, just hoping for the best and preparing for the worst. Instead, he surprised us all and rallied in a HUGE way. (Maybe he was channeling Brittany?) He started crawling out of Rileys shirt first, then began mewing. He ate, and hes eaten better and better with each feeding. Hes not gained weight, but hes not lost it either. I expect that to turn around soon. Today, he has the loudest cry and is trying to keep up with his sisters and brother by climbing the crate door with them, or chasing after the humans at feeding time when we let him out. We can see the edge of the woods now with him, even though we are not through them yet. Weve named him Spartan, partly in honor of the Original Everyday Warrior, our friend, Brittany, but also because he has embodied one of my favorite quotes in a very short few days- “Its not the size of the dog in the fight, its the size of the fight in the dog.” - Mark Twain. The size of Spartans fight appears to rival that of Leonidas I himself! So, that is the long tale of how we came to bottle feed a litter of kittens, and double our cats in a few short hours. Hey, thats only one cat per acre plus a spare. Perfectly reasonable, right?
Posted on: Wed, 08 Oct 2014 04:52:12 +0000
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