Foster Litter #4

UPDATE: I've finally added videos of these sweet babies on their first day with us. You can find the videos at the bottom of this post.

Yesterday morning Mandy Mo shared a short video of a bunch of mewling lil rats. Okay, not rats. If you turn your head sideways and squint they kinda resembled kittens. Then she posted a picture with the mama nursing the litter and asking if anyone would be interested in fostering them. You can guess what happened next. I turned to my husband and pointed out that we'd just been talking about taking on another litter and that the "widdle biddy babies were soooo cute" and "they neeeed us!"

We have 4 cats now. Permanent residents. And they eat like we've been starving them. And poop like... Okay, you get the point. Feeding decent food to 4 cats gets expensive. And the amount of litter we go through -especially when we are fostering an extra 5-7 cats. And someone has to scoop those boxes! John and I had to discuss all of this that morning. Were we really up to taking care of 10 cats? We decided we were.

So we sent word to Tiane that we would take them and hopped in the car. I signed in and told the nice lady working at the front, "I'll take a fresh batch of kittens, to go, please!" Now here's where it gets fun: These babies were One Day Old! The mama was brought in to the shelter heavily pregnant and had just given birth the day before. I grew up raising litters of kittens and I couldn't wait to watch my husband and kids meet their very first newborn kittens and experience this miracle!

My goodness... What a treat! I was so excited for John to see them. He'd never seen newborn kittens at all. I went to the back to help Christa load up the babies while John visited with Mandy in her office. Next we went to get our mama, Nala, who was in with the vet getting a final check. Christa opened the door and Nala shot out like lightening! She made through a second door that was open for a split second and ran all the way down to the dog kennels. She wanted her babies back! Christa caught her and held her close. I had to laugh when I saw Christa shielding Nala's face from the dogs and was telling her, "Don't look at the doggies! Don't look!" LOL

As she ducked into the carrier to reunite with her 5 babies, I finally saw Nala's wounds on her rear end. My heart ached at the sight of painfully raw flesh. The vet began explaining to me that Nala had been brought in as a stray with what appeared to be a pretty bad dog bite. It looked like a dog had clamped down on both sides of her tail bone, right above her tail. The wounds were very deep and my heart broke for her. I hadn't known she was wounded so the vet talked to me for a few minutes and made sure I was comfortable caring for her like that and then gave me the antibiotics that Nala would receive twice a day for the next week.

I got Nala set up in our master bath and I knew immediately that she was a good mama. She settled into the bed I'd made them and didn't want to leave them to eat. So I went ahead and put the plate of food in the corner of the bed for her so she could eat and keep nursing. I spent some time loving on her before I even touched the babies. It's important that she trusts me so I waited for her approval which came pretty fast. She was nuzzling me and purring as if to thank me for the food and the nice bed.

She was really content so I helped her shift the babies around to nurse. Newborn kittens don't have their eyes open yet. They're are wobbly and clumsy as they search for a nipple to claim. A couple of the babies kept crawling up on her side near her tail. And their fine little claws were tearing open her worst wound. She would let out a little meow and cringe but she was so patient with them even while she had to be experiencing terrible pain. This happened so often in the first few hours that one of the kittens had a chunk of dried blood on his head from rooting around on her bleeding wound.

You can see the chunk of dried blood on the head of the baby in the middle...

You can't see it here but she has open wounds on the other side too and she was having a hard time getting comfortable. She couldn't lay down on her side to nurse properly. This is why I helped her shift the babies around. I swear she knew I was there to help her and we worked together to get her situated and comfy enough to lay down.