Kittens and Boys

 Wow are the kittens ever popping everywhere.  And big males in trouble from fighting each other.

I drove six newborns to Portland last night in fact.  They were from a Lacomb colony.  A relative of the property owners is trapping it.   I got involved by offering advice, from my computer screen.  The keyboard warrior!     So they had trapped the newborns mom, after finding the litter, but their trap was lousy, one of those collapsibles, with a thin wire loose back, attached at the top, but not the sides or bottom. They add a little metal rod that's supposed to hold the back in place.  Yeah right.

  But its flimsy construction makes the trap dangerous.  The cat easily escaped out that poorly attached back.  But not before nearly getting out the front, because the door is loose at the bottom once sprung.  This defect in this particle trap has killed cats.  They get their head under the door but that's it and strangle to death.  These are killer traps, in other words.

They'd been bottle feeding the kittens a couple days by the time I loaned them decent traps.  Then they found more kittens, these four weeks old, and were able to trap their mom, plus another cat they thought to be the wayward mom, but isn't.  

The six newborns on their way to Portland

This is from the foster lady's instagram.  And its the little tabby girl with the thorn wound she took to the ER vet.

The relative then was housing the mom of the four weeks olds, plus the four of them and the second adult, who had a bad URI, plus the six newborns that she had to bottle feed every two hours.  This is a little much for anyone.  

Long story short, I injected myself into it.  Found a place the kittens could go, up in Portland, with the help of an online mostly friend, and offered to drive them up.   She said "yes" to giving them up and so I went over and picked them up.  They were in decidedly good condition for newborns who'd been without a mom for five days or so.  Except being underweight and one was badly dehydrated with a thorn hole wound in its belly.  I'd brought sub cu fluids in syringes, pre warmed and took that one down to the car and gave him 20 cc or so, by flashlight, plus some kmr laced with hummingbird food.   

The kitten hadn't been taking kmr.  Usually one might mix a little Karo syrup into the KMR, to get blood sugar up but they had no Karo.  They did have home made hummer food, mixed at 50% sugar instead of 25%.  So I fed the little tabby some of that.  

I had a heat frisbee in my carrier for them and finally hit the road.  They're good, now up with a Portland rescue.  The little tabby girl with the stinky infected blackberry thorn wound went to the ER vet last night.  Her new foster took her in.  I hear she's better today.  They're so tiny and so fragile.  Well, no, now I just heard she died today.

The lady who had them lives third floor apartment and I climbed those three flights of stairs three times last night, in back and forths to my car.  Wow, what great exercise living in a place like that could bring!

I also had taken the other adult, who is not a mom, from her, to be fixed Friday, in my very last appointments before my summer break.  Alas, she has a bad URI.  Today I started her on antibiotics and gave her sub cu fluids.  She's a very small and very young adult, maybe not even a year old yet.  So wasn't so hard.    Late last night or early this a.m. they trapped the newborn kittens mom and its easy to see why she left them.  She too has a bad URI.  So she's also in my bathroom, to be fixed Friday.  Am hoping the clinic will give both convenia injections, that long lasting antibiotic.  Her people's relative will hold both of them a few days after surgery, at her place.  I'll get to climb those stairs again!

Besides them, I have here Klaus, a big brown tabby Waterloo male that showed up at a place right behind the park last December.   He may have been dumped at the park.  They contained him early.  They  weren't supposed to get him contained until tomorrow, but he's been here since Monday night.  He's lounging easily in a cage in the garage.  But his size and unfixed status agitate my own boys.

Friday's my last appointments for the summer, outside of a few I might scrounge now and then.  I'm excited and happy!!