There was a skinny wee black cat hanging round the yard at work, not wild, but a stray obviously... Well sometime around Waitangi Day, Feb 2019 she decided to grace us with the birth of her babies, which approx a week later she decided to shift into a nest she made half way up a wall in amongst the electrical wiring for our roller door. Obviously they couldn't stay there, and so with eyes just starting to open they were shifted into a humane trap hoping mum would come back for them and we could catch her. If mum came back it was only once and she didn't spring the trap, and then she stopped coming. We decided the young ones (four of them! 3 pitch black, and one every so slightly lighter) couldn't go all day without feeding at that age, we couldn't just leave them starving for 15 hours till mum came back at night, so we started eye dropping milk into the babies, but we were all busy and it wasn't as regular as it should have been. Over night, the weakest and the quietest one died, and we established mum hadn't come back over night to them at all. They were all cold and extremely hungry and another one was looking very weak. So I took the three of them home that night. None of them were suckling, it was syringe work to feed them and unfortunately my first time doing that. I got so enthusiastic when all 3 of them took 3ml of milk each I went for another 2ml for them and sadly I drowned the wee one :( They were at this stage probably a week old, eyes were still only just opening and I don't think they could actually see, but man they were loud!!!
This video below they were probably Bird has just finished his feed and is looking rather milk drunk, but you can hear him purr when Marcus touches him, and Bear having his feed. So little, so so beautiful. From being EXTREMELY loud kittens, particularly at feed times, 3 weeks down the track they are really quiet kittens. Even now at 3 mths old Bear is only just now starting to chirp and make noises, he has no need to cry out and call mum which I just love :)
Well all was going well until at about 4 weeks old Bird somehow broke his front leg. Started with a small limp, overnight it got more painful, the next day it was swollen beyond belief and he wasn't standing on it at all. That's all fine! They can't give kittens pain killers, and can't put it is a cast because of the swelling and the growth factor, we were using the bioptron on it to get the swelling down and remove some of the pain and 3 days later it was coming along OK, but I had separated Bird and Bear so Bear couldn't crawl all over him and hurt it further, this brought to light a far more sinister problem than the leg... It appears Bear had been nursing on his brother's bits!!! Quite natural considering their age and the need to nurse, but it happening had ensured that Bird was toileting quite normally altho it always seemed to be while he was lying down in all the bedding, hindsight show us why! Bird had a bladder issue, that he was unable to toilet on his own, not even when he was absolutely bursting, in fact he nearly got to the bursting point! 3.30am 11th of March we made a trip into town to see the vet as it was obviously way more than his leg and sadly I suspected it was a bladder issue. The vet said there was obviously something physically wrong with him that he couldn't mechanically toilet on his own and that altho they could operate at less than 5 weeks old it didn't bode well for a happy and healthy cat long term. So my little Angel was set free then and there and buried beside his little sister.
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| Big Bird about to start eating on his own :) |
I must say altho I wouldn't wish it on anything, Bird's injury did give Bear and I a chance to bond as I had to keep them separate. He is one feisty wee thing!!! Have got all of their progresses diary noted, their weights, when they first ran, jumped, ate solids, so glad I didn't rely solely on FB to store all that!!! I'd be ready to kill!!! And then it was just Bear progressing on his own, and growing, and getting lighter in colour! (He was the very dark grey one) and his coat white specked out completely and he developed grey and black stripes! (You can see the stripes down his back in this next photo)
Bear was still needing to be fed by bottle even after Bird died, Bird had been more ready to get off the bottle and onto solids, just prior to hurting himself, but Bear was REALLY good at using the litter box without needing to be shown. I would take him in the car to a mate at work who only worked part time and wasn't on at that stage and drop him with her during the day and pick him up after work and take him home and had the grand idea that this cat was going to be another Rastus!!!! A bike cat :) Only trouble is he would completely freak out if a loud bike went past hahaha. Anyway at 10 weeks old we took him up the North Island with us for a week in the car, litter tray in the back, he was just perfect to travel with!!! Couldn't have wished for more :) and he was great with any animals he met on the way.
He is now 3 mths old tomorrow, weighing in at 1.8kg (he was 150grams when he first came home) and a little hell cat who lives to terrorise the adult cats nonstop! He will climb in the bath with me and perch on what ever dry bit he can find, he purrs so loud I can't sleep till he stops and loves to sleep snuggled in under my chin or lying across my neck or shifting every 5 mins to do variations of those poses which doesn't lend itself to good sleeping when he decides to join me but I wouldn't have it any other way. He is the light of my life
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| getting used to his harness before the trip |
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| 6 plus hours driving and that was pretty much how he spent all of it |
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| traffic jam on Auckland's motorways give a chance to bask in the sun |
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| new playmates, Stella the collie pup |
Oh, and funnily enough apart from the 2 tiny bits of white on him since he was born, the grey has gone back to black, the striping has disappeared and the only evidence of his coat having all the white specking it did is the hairs on the inside of his ears are still white! Wonder if his summer and winter coats will be different?!
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