Tonight when I got home from work, I was beat. The heat has been so tiring and with the air conditioner down, work is almost unbearable. I asked Mike to help me bottle feed and handed him Troy as I picked up Triffles. At first all seemed well then I heard a choking noise and looked over. Troy had dropped the nipple of the bottle and was open-mouth gasping but no air was coming out! I grabbed the kitten quickly and dangled him upside down for a few minutes. He started to cry- which was a very good sign, but when I brouht him right side up, his mouth opened and closed like a fish on a line- so upside down he went again.

The bottom line is that Troy has gotten milk in his trachea and lungs. For a week old kitten, this can be quite dangerous and a large percentage of just weeks old kittens die from aspirating formula.

The liquid acts like a foreign object and the body launches an attack against the invader. But, because it is actually a foreign object (and not a virus) antibiotics won’t stop the impending brochitis or pneumonia and the kitten gets progressively weaker and dies.

Mike feels horrible. I should have never asked him to help me-especially after last night, but there are four kittens to feed and only one of me. Now, what happens to Troy will be up to God and just how strongly this little orange boy wants to live. I feel so helpless and angry at this turn of events. Trying so hard to keep these kittens alive and find them loving homes and now I may just lose one. The only saving grace is that if the liquid I removed from his mouth and nose (with a q-tip) is the only liquid that got all bottled up and his trachea and lungs are clear- only time will tell.

It’s funny, I am used to sitting in waiting rooms waiting for vets- but sitting in the ER with your husband and waiting for over three hours in the wee hours of the morning really gets your attention. That’s where I was last night. We left the house at 10:00 p.m. to drive less then 25 minutes away and didn’t return home until 1:00 a.m.!

Last night Mike went to bed early and as the heat has become so oppressive, he slept on top of the covers instead of underneath. When I went in to get ready for bed, I noticed this black hole on the bottom of his foot! I didn’t think it was dirt (though I was hoping) and because he is diabetic, he can’t feel his feet anymore. So I turned on more lights and my heart sank. I was looking at another diabetic ulcer, this one badly infected.

I woke him up, told him I needed to clean it off. When I put the syringe (no needle folks) of hydrogen peroxide into the hole, half of the syringe vanished from sight…….:( I knew this was out of my league, so off we went to the ER.

Turns out it is indeed an ulcer with a nasty infection. The doc clipped away all the neucrotic skin, cleaned it out and stitched it up. He is supposed to stay off his feet for three days- want to bet he won’t?

I guess time will tell but all the way to the hospital I was in tears. This sucker has been there a long time and he didn’t even know it. I was mad at myself too for not noticing it right away-

If it doesn’t heal in a timely manner, they are going to send him to the wound clinic for follow-up care-

These newcomers are so in need of a lactating mom, that I decided to take a chance and post on Craigslist that I was looking for a nursing mom. I didn’t think anyone would respond, and I was surprised (and saddened) to find out the opposite was true. I got dozens of emails almost immediately with people either begging me to take their queen and her kittens or saying I could borrow their queen for as long as I needed.

I have a lactating queen upstairs right now- but there is a problem. She is so young, and she is depleted from her own 4 kittens that only two nipples are giving milk. Her kittens were born on Father’s Day and so they are just still weeks old. I did put the weakest on her for a few minutes- but I know better than to ask her to take on more kitties. Her owner is going away for a while and asked me to keep her while she was gone as she couldn’t find a competent kitty sitter.

If someone contacts me and says their queen has lost her kittens and still has milk, I will try that route. But otherwise, I suspect if I accept another “family” I might not have a visiting queen and kittens, but ones that will be staying whether I want them to or not!

I have been asked by several readers this one question. “There is a queen and a litter of kittens on my property, what now?”

Everyone who rescues has their own system. Some people believe that trapping the mom and securing the kittens at the earliest age possible allows the kittens to be easily handled. I suppose that is true. If you were a baby and your mom was taken away from you suddenly, you would go into shock and be easily handled as well. I just don’t ascribe to this method.

Any time I have a litter of kittens and a queen on my property, I leave her kittens with her until she and I have formed a bond and she brings them to me. They always do on their time frame, not mine, and I learned over time to stop panicking if the kittens get over the 4 weeks of age time frame. They can still be handled and socialized, but staying with mom, they learn valuable lessons that only she can teach them. I am a poor substitute.

This is my method and it has served me well over the years. It has been refined over time to be more effective. Perhaps, it might help you as well if you are struggling with what to do now~

I feed the queen on a schedule daily. At least five separate times, I visit her feeding spot, leave her food and water. She comes to expect the visits and I see her waiting in the bushes or under a piece of farm equipment, waiting for that now familiar pop of the cat food can, or the rattle of the Friskies box. I always announce myself first, either by popping a can, or shaking a box of food before I pour. Nearby on the ground spread out is a blanket (a thick one depending on the terrian,) After I set the food out in cookie sheets- I do not feed in bowls, but have learned that flat feeding surfaces are easily accepted, I lie down on the blanket on my back and just wait. She will come and eat, and through it all I lay quite still. If she hisses, I don’t react. If she inspects me, I don’t move. I am a rock- silent and still and waiting.

Over time, I change position until I am sitting up. At no time do I even look at her because a direct stare to a stray cat is like inviting her to a fight at the ok corral. If we do happen to catch each other, I slowly blink several times, lower my head then look away.

She gets used to me and how long it takes really depends on me. If I am impatient and wanting her to accept me now, she responds by backing away. It is her time sheet not mine she is keeping. So I work slowly not expecting anything earth-shattering to occur and that is when I usually get a head bump or two.

Once she knows I am not there to hurt her, she comes to me willingly and I still will not touch her or stare at her. I know from experience that the very minute I reach out to touch her- she will dart away and vanish and I am back at square one. Slow and steady wins this race.

After the kittens are born, I increase the times I feed her. I also give her kitten replacement milk to sustain her as nursing is hard on her. When she is ready and asl long as I stay low on the blanket, she will bring them to me. They generally climb all over me and I still don’t move. It will take days before I begin to touch them ever careful of mom and her protective ways. I have been struck by a new mom and it came fast and calculated. I never saw it coming, but I felt her wrath for days afterward.

There is a rhythm to this procedure. It is like breathing, the yin and yang of life. It is slow measure movements, wearing your love on your sleeve and soon I am rewarded with a lapful of kitties ready to leave mom. They have learned from her how to hunt, when to be quiet, when to play. How to go to the bathroom and how to socialize with others. Thats when they come indoors and get individual attention. I do enough bottle feeding every year to understand the true importance of the queen being in the kittens lives- and instead of asking God “What now?” I trust in Him and the knowledge He has given me to work with these wonderful creatures.

Yesterday, I was bottle-babyless and it felt quite strange. I had to take hubby in for his cancer check-up, then he had an eye surgery scheduled and we had to drive clear to Portland which is three hours away. Normally, I would have just packed the little darlins and all their supplies and they would have gone with us- but we are sitting at high temperature heat and even with the air conditioner roaring, they wouldn’t have been comfortable. So a friend of mine took them for 24 hours.

They are back now and have just been fed and tucked in for a few hours. She loved the whole process, even getting up every 3 hours didn’t diminish the delight she felt in helping “the wee darlings!” They look good with the exception of MacBeth, the short haired gray. I have an appointment with Dr. Vicki Thayer this morning. She is a feline specialist who makes house calls- a rare find in this neck of the woods! She is so good and we have developed a friendship as well as a professional relationship with each other. I suspect that MacBeth should have stayed inside the queen just a bit longer. His rectum doesn’t appear to be fully developed and passing stool is so difficult for him. If you compare him to the other kittens you can see that he is from a different tom simply by his size, the fact that his eyes are still half-closed, his ears haven’t opened and his poophole is so tiny. 🙁 I pray I am wrong, but I ran into this a few years ago with a litter of cute, cute, cute manx-cross kitties and within 24 hours of bottlefeeding, I knew something was terribly wrong. They were all 7 rushed to the vet and none of them came home again. All were euthanized because they had no rectums, they had a hole, but it didn’t go anywhere. 🙁 He is at least pooping- but it is a long process and he cries are so horrendous, I know he is in pain. But I also know that if I just quit stimulating him he could die from that. Hopefully, Vicki will be able to provide me with the answer.

The cats, dogs and horses are in a state right now. We have had fierce electrical storms at night. Last night, the thunder actually shook the house! There were cats flying in all directions trying to get away from the noise and chaos. The sky was lit up with heat lighting, and there are now multiple forest fires around us, although we are far enough away from the hills not to be in immediate danger. The air is smoky this morning and the animals are on high alert. I don’t think we have seen the end to these strange storms.

Well, it is 6:30 a.m. and as much as I want to just crawl into bed, throw the covers over my head and pretend I don’t exist- I have to instead go and feed the horses, feed the dogs, feed the cats, bring in the cat litter, change out all the boxes! YAY! No more nasty sweet smelling cat litter- it has been all given away and replaced with Stall-Dry! My cats hated that litter that was given to me. What a shame too, a whole pallet of non-clumping cat litter that caused the worst case of litter box reprisals that this house has ever seen. The living room was the battle ground of choice and it is going to take me days to restore the room back to a normal scent. I don’t know what possesses some litter companies to put scents in litter! Cats don’t care if their litter doesn’t smell good before they use it- in fact, they Prefer it doesn’t smell at all! This stuff (which I won’t name publicly because the company was so nice to donate it to me) was so smelly sweet I knew I was in trouble when I opened the first bag. Most of it went in the horses stalls- with all the air traveling through the stalls the smell wasn’t the issue. But in the cat room and the house, the cats were pissed in a bad way and they sprayed and pooped out of the box for weeks until I managed to get rid of the stuff. No wonder the company couldn’t compete with the big dogs- they don’t know cats!