I need knowledge! Anyone with ideas, please chime in. Hunky Dory and Major Tom have had some serious issues getting their nutrition so far, and we now reach the next hurdle- water supply. Both boys were unable to latch, and have been bottle fed. They have both matured, and we have gotten them to the point where they have their babycat in an oral syringe feeding a couple times a day, with some supplemental kmr in bottles in between. We have tried to put the food on a plate with little success, although if I hold the plate at 45 degrees, Tom can eat some on his own. Both boys are able to eat if I take a pinch of food and hold it to their mouths. After watching for a while, perhaps because they have such congestion, the head down to the plate may create too much pressure on their sinuses. I am thinking of elevated and tipped plates, but as they get bigger and more independent, they will need to take in water. And the H2O dilemma... How can we provide fresh water to kitties that may not be able to comfortably put their head down to a horizontal surface? A wonderful group of fosters gave some great ideas to me yesterday; perhaps a travel water bottle that has a catch tray, or a fountain. My first thought was a bottle used in enclosures for small animals like rabbits or guinea pigs, an inverted gravity fed water bottle with the ball bearing stopper. Since I already picked one up, this is where I will start with the water journey. I found a site online that has successfully trained cats to use this type of water bottle. They initially trained by using a tuna flavored and strained water, and gradually lessening the amount of flavor until it was just water. Since the kids are kmr babies, I could do something similar with a kmr mixture to start, and if they are successful I can slowly change the ratio until it is all water. They did comment that some cats did not like that ball bearing noise created when it is used, we shall see how that goes! Now I need to construct some type of platform that will have a central pole that the bottle can mount to. Ideally, the bottle will be central on a wide base; the thought here is that if a kitten (or cat) wants to get close to the water from any side, they have to stand on the platform. Their weight on the platform will disable their ability to tip it over! (We have much much experience with cats that like to tip gravity bowls over for the bubbles, or just for pure kitty mischief!) ideally it would have some type of lip to catch extra water, and be constructed of plastic or some material that wont get damaged from water. For some reason, I am thinking of a ginormous plastic cutting board, but have no idea how that could be accomplished! The central pole will have some way to securely attach the bottle, but with the ability to remove it for cleaning and filling. It would also have to be able to raise or lower the bottle an infinite degree so that the right height could be maintained as they grow taller. My vision here is some sort of set like is used in a chemistry lab, like for burettes or the like, with clamps that allow a bottle to be slid up or down a pole. These are my rudimentary ideas. Do any of you have any other ideas to throw into the mix? Anyone have any experience with some sort of watering center that would help? (This is the pole idea, and the bottle I got)
Posted on: Mon, 15 Sep 2014 17:44:30 +0000
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