Foster Kitties

The kittens are getting their first visitors today. One of my work colleagues will be dropping by with his wife and kids to pet kitties. Should be a good time. :-) In preparation we're cleaning the house, especially the bathroom and the cat room. I've never tried to vacuum cat litter off carpet. UGH! My Dyson was defeated.

Yesterday we went running around in the morning. One of our first stops was a pet store. I went in with the intention of purchasing cat toys, and then I was appalled at the prices. I just couldn't pay $6.00 for three feathers tied to a stick. So then we went to some craft stores getting supplies. I spent about $30 on enough feathers and beads and elastic string and sticks and such to make hundreds of toys. I have fabric and yarn and hemp cord a-plenty already in my craft bins. I'll post photos and directions for making toys once I get them up.

We also went to Ikea with the intention of building some cat furniture, but I didn't find what I wanted. I did get some cheap sisal & seagrass rugs that will make good covering for the cat climber. I'll hit up Home Depot for some sonotube and other supplies some time later in the week. I have some scrap lumber, and should be able to get more out of the scrap bin there. I should also look for a carpet store that will give me some roll ends cheap. :-)

While looking for cat furniture building ideas, I came across quite a few clever designs:

• using shelves for a wall climber
• another version of the same idea
• a nifty outdoor cat ladder
• more to come...
  

Poor little Princess Boo Boo has the sniffles. :-( She and Coconut are on Clavamox, so if there's anything bacterial that should clear it soon. If it's viral the poor thing will just have to suffer through it like all of us do when we have colds. She's very cuddly; she liked sitting on my shoulder and playing with my hair. She's not feeling up to being very playful, though.

Coconut, on the other hand, was feeling his oats. He was incredibly active, jumping around the room chasing a fly and chasing the laser pointer and his own tail. He was a bit bitey, so I forced my hand in his mouth until he protested every time he tried to bite it, and then redirected him to a toy. The best one for him so far seems to be a little knitted mouse with a bell on its tail.

Princess and Coconut both have lots of fleas. I'll get stuff to treat them at the shelter tomorrow. I'll take the whole clan in to get medicated and check-ups, and to sort out any paperwork issues with the five of them.

So I've been talking online to another person. I initially emailed her about kittens at the same time I emailed the PAWS shelter. Turns out we are neighbors, and she is the mother of one of Zach's classmates.

To make a long story short, she had a couple of kittens that she was fostering temporarily, but who needed another space so that she could take in other sick kitties. She's a second line foster home, taking in cats that were struggling in other situations. They are both siamese colored, which is a particular soft spot of mine. So I caved, and brought home Princess Boo Boo and Coconut.

Coconut is a flame point kitty. His points will end up a nice reddish color as he ages. He's about 11 weeks old. Princess Boo Boo is 6 weeks old, and a lynx point, which means her siamese points are tabby cat colored- grey and stripey. She is also probably a long haired cat, not a short hair.

Charlie and I have agreed to a moratorium on kittens now, though. At this point, we're zero-sum. Someone has to go before anyone new comes in. I also think we'll need to re-claim the bathroom when Z comes home, so we'll go back to just having the one bedroom for fostering.

Charlie is away tonight on a business trip. I was not looking forward to coming home and being alone, but I couldn't find anyone else to visit with tonight.

I came home and was getting sad. The house is big and empty with Zach away for the summer, and doubly so without Charlie here. But as soon as I got home I remembered that I have kittens! And I went up to the cat room for half an hour, and that was a cure for all that ailed me. All my sadness evaporated in the presence of Rose's demands for attention and the buzz of her purr.

She continues to just be a joy. I wanted to get a good look at her bite wound tonight, which involved restraining her and hurting her a bit. She growled and squirmed, but her claws never came out. She put her teeth on me once, but only gently, staring at me while she did it, and because I was putting direct pressure on the wound, which clearly really hurt her.

There is another abscess forming under the surface. If it hasn't opened up by the weekend, I'll take her into the clinic on Saturday to have it lanced. She also has tape worms, so I will get de-wormer as well.

date	Mickey	MarthaRickey	Princess	Coconut
7/6	5.2 oz	4.4 oz
7/7	6.4	4.4
7/8	7.3	4.8
7/9	7.5	5.0
7/10	7.8	5.3
7/11	8.6	6.0	19.5	26.8
7/13	9.8	7.2	20.3	29.7
7/15	10.4	8.0	20.1	32.1
7/17			22.1
7/18			22.5
7/21			23.5
7/23	13.0	10.0	24.4	40.7

Table of kitten weights. :-) I will try to find a more elegant way to add this to the blog.

I haven't spent much time with the kitties today, because of work and another commitment, but they seem to be doing fine. I'm a little concerned that "Martha" (who really needs a new name) hasn't gained any weight. Hopefully that will change in the next day or so, else we should probably take them in to the vet.

Rose is getting used to us, and is such a friendly kitty. She suffered the indignity of taking her medicine this morning without a struggle or a peep. When I came in this afternoon, she got right up from the sleeping kittens and meowed to get petted. She had finished her wet food, and used her litter box. Good kitty! It also looks like there were some scratch marks on her scratch box. If so, she gets an A+ in kitty behavior. :-)

I read her medical forms in more detail this morning, and found a hand-written note:

To foster person: rub raw honey on wound until healed.

This sounded rather ... odd ... at first. Put honey on her wound? huh? So I started looking into it. Turns out that honey has been used since the time of the Pharaohs to treat open wounds to prevent bacterial growth and promote healing. Who knew?

For folks not clicking through, those links are all to well respected medical sources, and cite empirical data gathered through peer-reviewed studies. Honey is approved for wound care in many countries now. I haven't found a statement on the FDA position, but there are over 500 studies of the medical application of honey, all with neutral to positive results. Can't hurt, might help! So off we went to Whole Foods to find some raw honey.

Again, Rose was a perfect little lady about having raw honey rubbed into her bite wound. Mewed a couple times, but didn't struggle or complain or try to get away, just stood stoically while I rubbed it in. She may have a little nerve damage from the bite wound, but she is still able to move the tail all the way to the tip. She's holding it a bit funny, but that may just be the open wound. Time will tell. I expect she will continue to carry it a bit more loosely than most cats, but don't think she'll have a significant paralysis.

Note that raw honey is also incredibly tasty. I spooned out a small amount into a tupperware cup to stay in the kitty room, and put the rest in the pantry. :-)

As soon as I was done with medical care and petting her again, she was purring loudly, and pushing her head against my hands if I stipped with the petting. She's learned to follow my hand if I snap my fingers, which is the first stage toward teaching her to come when called. She's eager enough for pets that I think she will be very trainable. She's also starting to show a little interest in the toys I bought for her and the kittens, particularly the ball with feathers in it.

I weighed the kittens; I'll enter their weights a bit later; don't have the stickie note with me. I'm not sure that "Martha" is a girl, after all. So hard to tell with new kittens! We'll be able to make a better guess in a couple days, and a name change may be in order. If anyone has a suggestion, let us know! Rose is too big to put on the little kitchen scale; I need to get a bowl to put her in to weigh her.

I found a posting on Craigslist from PAWS in Philadelphia about mother cats and their litters who would be destroyed if they weren't fostered, and it just about broke my heart to think about that. I have a small, unused bedroom in my home, so now it's a kitty cat playpen for a momma cat and her two kittens.

There were 5 mom's and kittens at the shelter, but one was scheduled for euthanasia because she has an infected bite wound on her tail. The mom is a tiny tuxedo cat who is probably not even a year old herself. The babies are both tuxedo tabbies. We took them in, though, so now they are safe.

My carrier has a small sliding door so that I can reach in to the carrier. The whole ride home in the car I was stroking momma cat. If I stopped petting her she would look up at me and meow. She is such a loving cat!

We've named momma "Rose," and the kittens "Mickey" and "Martha," because we're Dr. Who dorks. :-) I'm pretty sure Martha is a girl and Mickey is a boy, but they are too young to know for sure yet. Both still have their eyes closed and umbilical cords attached, so they can't be more than a day or two old.

Rose is such a good mom! She wouldn't even leave the kittens to eat. I put a tin of food in front of her so that she could eat without leaving the kittens, and she munched it down hungrily.

These cats will all be up for adoption as soon as the kittens are old enough to be weaned. I want to make space for the next litter to come home. Please let me know if you have any interest in these sweet cats.