Came home after visiting Hero, prepared the carrier and the stuff that kittens need and waited for the arrival of the bluepoints....
The kittens came in a carefully prepared shoebox which had two big plastic bags of hot water covered with layers of towels. Winnie had also managed to get Pets Own Milk which she had transferred over to a flask.
I put the kittens in my carrier (all my small cages have been lent out).
This is the shoebox they had come in.
Here they are...the siblings. Yes, they are siblings. Different in size, but definitely siblings, from the same litter.
My adult cats have a rotation system where one would get to monopolise my room and keep Bobby and me company, so it's Tiger season nowadays. When it's Tiger season, Cow, Bunny, Cleo, Indy and Pole also get free access to the room. Tiger is Gandhi-personified. He shares (well, accept his baby basket...don't anybody touch that!)
Tiger was already in the room, so being a Gandhi-fied host, he came over to say (sniff?) hello, then he stayed for a few polite minutes and went out.
The bigger one is active and looks well, but I was really worried about the smaller one. He looked very thin and was not even moving. Winnie said the smaller one had hardly drunk any milk. I'll assume they are males for now.
This is the bigger one.
Bobby, as always.
My son brought Bunny, just to say hello. Bunny sniffed and ran away.
I thought perhaps the journey had stressed them out, so even though Winnie had fed them an hour ago, maybe I should just give a little bit of milk and see if they want any. Winnie had come all the way from Setapak, which is like....the other end of the world.
He looked a bit emaciated and was not active at all. Never mind, coax him gently...
He drank! After a few tries and not rushing him...he drank, if only a few drops from the syringe. I think what helped, perhaps, was the warmth from my hand.
While feeding the small one, the big one wanted to explore....
Forever-faithful was on hand to help, though already blind.
The small one became instantly active after having drunk some milk. Better keep him warm. The vet always says "food and warmth, that's what kittens need".
He's now crawling around and climbing up onto the big one...
We're one gang, if you go by colour code...
Look at the small one...he's looking up!
And he wants to sleep on top of the big one now!
What a relief....I was so worried just now...
Both pee-ed a lot, too.
Names, names....we need names...let me think....
How about Baloo for the big one since he's so happy-go-lucky and Bagheera for the smaller one (never mind if Bagheera is black, that's okay).
Baloo and Bagheera?
I think from the looks of it, the mother-cat has not quite been feeding the smaller one. Bagheera is very thin. I've personally seen how Pole looked after Cleo and her brothers. Gosh, they were chubby all the way. Some mother-animals are known to neglect their babies, as do human-mothers, too.
I hope Bagheera makes it...
Bunny came in and mewed loudly....
But this is MY room, he seems to be saying...now, I can't even have my pink box!
You can, Bunny, it's called sharing the space.
But, "sharing" may not exist in the vocabulary of a feline alpha...
I still hear him complaining outside the room now.
Husband is giving him food to pacify him.
2 comments:
Dear Dr. Chan,
From my experience my one mother cat, she will purposely left out the rut of the litter and at one occasion when my housemate wasn't watching, suffocate one of her kittens. I think maybe her animal instinct is telling her that the kitten would not survive in the wild.
However, in her litter, there will be the fattest, chubbiest, spoilt rotten kitten.she/he will be double the size of her siblings. :)
Yes, it's instinctive. Some mothers might eat the weakest one up as well. But these two are okay now.
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