3/28/21

6 days... my longest foster kitten dry spell since joining IBR in June 2019. My last littles included Wicket-who stayed on as my very own ear attachment kitten, and I was lucky enough to help Mango & Tango overcome their trauma and find the most wonderful new home during what should have been a much longer dry spell between kitten seasons, since I couldn't take the newborns requiring 2hr bottle feedings throughout the day and night that we keep taking into the rescue. I was fairly resigned to being foster-less for another few weeks while the bottle fosters got the new season kittens up to weaner/grower status and I could take over.

But 2 days ago I was asked if I could take in 4 4-week old babies who needed a bottle every 4-ish hours during the day and should be transitioned to food within the week. OH YEAH!

These lucky 4 were dropped at a high kill shelter in Fresno around 4:40pm. They euthanized at 5pm so we had little time to accept them into the rescue before they were gently eased out of this world where people still don't spay and neuter their pets!! A volunteer drove them to one of our intake coordinators in Natomas where I picked them up less than 30 minutes later. We don't know their story before Friday the 26th, but they were obviously NOT bottle fed as they really struggled to latch onto the bottle all night. The intake coordinator, my mom, and I got a little formula into them, but not much.

The tabby girl kept biting at my fingers, nose, lips, legs... but when I tried chicken baby food or kitten food, she was NOT interested.

They changed their minds around 4am, when I woke up to them screaming at me from my kitten room. Hungry bellies magnified their interest in the bottle, but didn't help most of them figure out how to nurse. The tortie latched on quickly, but both boys ate more passively-with me squeezing it into their mouths as they made no effort to actually nurse. The husband woke up just in time to video the most enthusiastic but spastic eater of the group. Little tabby girl was a little manic again, this time attacking the bottle instead of my various body parts.

After a 4am and 8am feeding, I left them alone for a bit to spend time with my babies and get ready to go to Petsmart to set up kennels for the weekend adoptions. My little Wicket was extremely jealous- he climbed up to my shoulders in a sprint then used his tiny paws to push my face over, then kept pushing until we fell together on the bed where he frantically nursed on my ear until he passed out on my face. I'm not sure how he's going to survive the 2 week quarantine!

After Petsmart, I returned to give them another feeding and these little love bugs then crawled up and laid all over me. Tiny tabby girl likes to sneak into my hair and bury herself back there. The runt boy with the goopy eyes likes to lodge himself in my elbow. The other two will curl up just about anywhere. I couldn't get very many pictures, and those I managed to get were pretty awful, as it is difficult to get good angles of kitten piles when you can't move your arms very much.... especially when 3 of the kittens are nearly identical and the 4th is almost entirely black. Mostly the pictures of them on the unicorn oodie (blanket hoodie) were from yesterday after Petsmart- when they trapped me for hours and refused my access to food, water, or the toilet until I finally begged my husband to rescue me... the other pictures are just thrown in to show how friendly and cuddly they are!

Could you happily spend 4 hours petting kitten bellies and watching them eat their own toe beans? Yeah, I can and did.

Late Saturday they got their first visitor. My friend loves to turn kittens belly up and rub their cheeks.

Which brings us to this lazy Sunday. The eye goopies and their inconsistent ability to drink from the bottle has resulted in some crusty kitten faces and fur. I've been wiping them down with warm washcloths between feedings, but it seemed to keep building up. So I decided today would be bath day!

First up was my favorite.. the little girl tabby. She was such a good girl! Husband was running an errand, so I couldn't really get many pictures. It was also very difficult to get my nosy puppy to understand social distancing, but the baby had NO fear of the huge dog tongue trying to lick her face.

(Re-creating the blog isn't bad, except the videos... so if you want to see the rest of the videos, check out their original blog! Carb Kittens Blog )

Next came my poor goopy eye boy. The husband came home mid-bath and got some videos. But our space heater also broke down in the middle of his drying session. Even once we finished drying his fur with the hair dryer, he kept shivering. I *HAD* to share my body heat with him, and we cruised around for an hour while I texted everyone who lives close to me, looking for a space heater (the Amazon replacement won't get here until the 31st and, according to websites, the local stores didn't have the kind I want in stock... wrong season). He did NOT want his eye crusties wiped off... and he inisisted he was saving the dried formula on his chin for later... but mean mom just kept cleaning him anyway!

Once a loaner space heater was obtained (thank you mentor!) we moved on to the boy tabby who had a very definite opinion about baths.... or possibly he was telling us it was nearing his lunch time. Husband was home this time and seemed to like videos over photos...

I love bathing tiny tiny kittens and being able to rinse them by running warm water over their bellies... I don't know why I find this so soothing, but it makes me smile, EVERY TIME.

Last and most wiggly was the tortie. I'm sure once they start pooping I'll have to do baths again and I can do her first to see if she is just wiggly or if it was simply that lunch was past due.

Whew!! But their day was not over!! After a short nap, my niece showed up with her brother, my parents, and human lunch in tow. My niece was very helpful, as bottle feeding 4 hungry kittens with no patience can be a harrowing experience. On the advice of one of my rescue mentors, we gave them "something they could knead" while they ate and fed them on some stuffed cows I've had laying around. Then the girl tabby, who usually instigates all the play wrestling-particularly enjoying chewing on her sister's rump, crawled into my niece's hand and passed out. My niece refused to let anyone else hold her. The little tabby napped there even when her sister repeatedly crawled over her head until I snagged the sister and rubbed her belly into submission. When it was time for them to go, tabby girl protested and didn't want my niece to leave!

My brother and his wife are on their way over soon. We don't usually get so many visitors, but today happens to also be my birthday so my phone has been pinging off the hook all day. Plus, we're on Spring Break, so this litter of kittens will get even more visitors next week! We've also got somename possibilities, so hopefully by the next update, they'll get names... I gotta stop calling my poor boy with the eye infection "Goop", lol.

Sooooo... I had these grandiose plans to start this website by re-creating the blog of my current litter, the Carb Kittens... a different page for each different day I added to the blog. But I spent the last 4 hours, off and on, trying to do this one day, so.... days 3/29/21, 4/1/21, 4/17/21 updates are in the original blog. Carb Kitten Blog