Yesterday I went to The Breeders farm to collect my milk. (The Breeder bred Daisy and is my mentor in all things Cow). She was flat out. Jogging across her quad to say Hullo. Huge tractors and trailers parked by the bins. The flat sun was shining and they were harvesting and there is no rest until the crop is all in. Can you take these criers? she said. Their mother has gone. We briskly trotted to her barn. I did not realise’ til this morning but I have been in the fields. She continued. I don’t have time. It added up slowly. The mother cat might have been gone a few days. Abandoned kittens. No longer crying. Just lying still.
Ok, I said, without thinking, following her into her barn, she scooped up three tiny, tiny kittens. Eyes still closed. This one feels cold, she said. Still alive though. She works with animals. She knows the score. She knows what a small cold body means. Pop her in, I said. I will see. Not looking good though, I agreed, as I tucked the cold wee body in with its siblings. One marmalade coloured was bigger than the rest and two the colour of fresh mushrooms.
I put the box of kittens in the car. Ton moved back, he is not a Cat Dog – Boo moved forward and lay himself on the seat next to them. We drove home. Quick Smart.
Their eyes were still closed. Glued shut. I added a hot water bottle to their box and Boo and I cleaned all the gunk from around their eyes with warm tea and the first thing this wee cat saw was this .
And all the rest of the day as I fed them with an eye dropper, every hour, with warm very diluted raw cows milk and a little egg mixed in- Boo had his face in every stage. More than once I had to tell him not to take the kittens out of the box without asking first.
And I learnt an interesting thing from Becoming Cliche who works in a zoo – so she knows about these things. I sent her an SOS as the littlest one was so cold. If you try to feed a little animal who has already gone cold, so cold they cannot digest, the food will rot in their bellies, she wrote. So it is important to warm the animal first. In your bra, she suggested! She obviously has no idea how small my bra is. However. Boo took over.
Boo has their corner.
Yes, that is a shot of a dog asleep with his head in a box of dozing kittens.
Good morning. Boo and I fed the kittens tiny feeds of milk through the night and each time they seemed stronger. I am using the same theory as the lambs. Tiny drinks often. They are in a bigger box now, which is wrapped in a duvet. The little pale fella is warm now and as noisy as the others.So far so good. They can slowly creep about the floor at feed time, though not very fast (and not far as Boo lays in front of them to prevent them getting away) but I am hoping that soon they can lap their milk from a saucer. I think they might be about a week old but it is hard for me to tell. I do not have a bottle small enough for a cat, and using the eye dropper is not ideal. Though I have read that a syringe is better so I will try that today.
I have also read a dozen alarming articles on hand rearing kittens and it seems the problems are myriad. But I am going to follow my own instincts and do the best we can.
So I did not get around to picking the apples yesterday. Today maybe?
your friend on the farmy, celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
75 responses to “Oops, she’s done it again! Boo too. Boo is as much to blame!”
All Boo’s kittens aren’t they
You go even higher in my estimation! And that is not easy as you are topof the ladder anyway for all that you do..now you have wee kittens to care for…just how do you do it?
I’ve reared a baby animal using a doll’s feeding bottle. Not ideal, as the teat isn’t flexible, but it goes faster than the eyedropper. You just have to be sure to get it really clean between feeds, as they’re not designed to be properly sterilised. And it stands up to the treatment better than the other possibility, which is poking a small hole in the finger of a rubber glove and dribbling milk into their mouths with that. The older they get, the sharper the teeth… What a job you have ahead of you, but your reward will come when you have three big healthy cats to admire and preen yourself over.
We raised kittens with baby doll bottles, too, but they were a little older. When it came time to teach them to lap, we used spoons. Once they could lap from a spoon it was pretty easy to get them to transition to a bowl or saucer. Wishing you and the kitties the best of luck.
BEST POST EVER!!!
Celi, you are the bestest ever – yip bestest is a word, I just decided!
I would be there in a heart beat to take over looking after these wee little ones if I could.
I am sending you the biggest warmest virtual hug ever!
🙂 Mandy xoxoxo
Well, that dog just erased a whole lotta Naughty in one day 🙂
Good luck with them, Honey. We’ll be thinking about you!
He sure did!
Bless their sweet little hearts, and Boo … What a treasure you are. Good morning to all!
Good old you and Boo! What a sweet, fatherly instinct that puppy has. Syringes are easier, you can get them from your pharmacy. If not, try the children’s bottles of painkillers, they seem to put them in those these days rather than a spoon. 🙂
Aww! I am just getting teary eyed over these pics and will be sharing them with cat loving friends this morning. God bless Boo! (And you too Celi)
The sky has been gorgeous the last two mornings — I don’t know my constellations but I think I am seeing the Ursa Minor (the Little Dipper) perhaps —
Forgot to say I raised three kittens after their mother abandened them, but they already had their eyes open and were taught to drink from shallow bowl
Boo is their surrogate mother . . . they will probably grow up thinking they are dogs!
I wish you all the best with them – work your magic Celi.
My God woman is there no end to you.?? talk about an overfull plate, you just amaze me…
But you also gave me the biggest laugh I’ve had in a long time… Linda walked over to see what the hell was I laughing about… ” In your bra, she suggested! She obviously has no idea how small my bra is.”.. I got this picture of you walking around with a cat in your bra, doing all the chores you get up to everyday… and the picture in my head was just too funny for words…
When at boarding school I raised a squirrel that had been abandoned, it spent its days in my shirt pocket, where I fed it with an eye dropper between each class… I have to say it did get me into quite a bit of trouble, before the term was up and I could take it home, I think I bent down seven times to get 6 cuts a time, I’d been told to leave it in the dorm, but just couldn’t and it popping its head out of my pocket in the middle of maths or science did not go down too well with the teachers… not to worry though my arse was so well beaten I hardly felt the cuts… and the squirrel was worth it…
Awwww….that melted my heart! What sweet photos and sweet sweet Boo is such a wonderful surrogate momma to these babies. You are such a compassionate woman. Your love and care of all things is overwhelming to me. Of course many of your readers would have done the same but we don’t have all the other things going on that you have. These babies are going to be so loved!
Aw, what a sweet Boo! He can be a little bit of a naughty pup sometimes, but then he makes up for all that with his caring nature.
FYI: I know you have not had time to work on your night photo project much, but Shreve – another blogger I follow posted this last night: http://honeyrockdawn.com/2013/10/moonshot/#comments I thought you might want to see this great photo. Of course, she was (is?) a professional photographer in her life prior to Wyoming, but now she does a little bit of everything.
Good for you Boo and Celi!
I am not a cat person but those little ones are adorable. It’s lovely to see Boo so paternal with them.