All of the Work and None of the Fun - Foster Kitten Friday

One of the biggest benefits to being a foster parent to bottle baby kitties is they think you're their mama. They love on you and snuggle with you and follow you wherever you go. You have a constant companion and a constant source of entertainment. 

But not so with these little fellas.

With the boys still in the isolation room (also know as my bathroom) I don't get to see them all that much. With their ringworm - and since they aren't bottle babies anymore - the contact I have with them is limited. Feed them, clean their litter and blankets and tub and floors, and give them a bit of loving. Each time I step in there I have to change my clothes, get gloves on, and have bleach water on hand and washing machine at the ready. It's a lot of work without a lot of payoff for the foster parent.

But the payoff for the kitties will be huge. They'll be ringworm free (hopefully) and ready to go into their forever home someday. They are just so darn cute someone will be thrilled to snap them up.

Just like most weeks, I'm only taking my phone in (and sterilizing it afterwards of course) one day a week to get some photos. Today's pictures are pretty representative of what I see every day when I'm in there.

Face full of food? Yep.

Trying to find a way out again? Yep.

Boxes are the best play toy.

Foster mama just can't keep my white fur white!
But I'm still a cutie, right?

Foster Kitten Friday - Movin' on Up

Despite the week being full of the words like continued isolation (kitties) and quarantine (me) and of new eye infections (kitties) and hospitalizations and in-home antibody infusions (inner family circle), we made it through. Made it through and then some.

For this week was the one bottle baby foster parents dream of. The week the 'round the clock every-two-hour feedings seemed so far long ago. Yep, the kitties are growing up. And are WEANED. No more bottle babies here!

While they are self sufficient in the litter box and with eating off the plate, they are not so self sufficient in eating neatly. Or in cleaning up after themselves. 

What's the best way to eat off a plate? Curled up in the middle, of course.

Naptime, perhaps?

Does someone need their face wiped?

Yes, please.

Someone need help washing their hands paws?

Most definitely!

A messy week for all of us in so many ways, but the cuteness factor the kitties brought to the table made it a good one.

Foster Kitten Friday - The Ups and Downs

It was almost three years ago when I made the 10 Reasons You Should Foster a Cat video. 

At that point in my foster-parent-to-kittens life things were relatively easy going. But these last few years have taught me that fostering is full of ups but is also full of just as many downs. While it's fun and exciting to play with cute little kitties all day, it's also work. And this bunch of babies are work. 

I left off last week's post with some new terminology - foster home biosecurity. With Dewey having come down with ringworm, foster home biosecurity had to kick into high gear. Anything and everything now is about treatment and a decontaminated environment. Which really means kitties being isolated in the bathroom. Gloves. Multiple changes of my clothes day and night. Constant laundry. Pill popping. (For the kitties, not me.) And bleach. Lots of bleach. We need to cure the kitties, keep them from getting reinfected, and keep the adults from catching it and the only way to do it takes work. Making sure there is no cross-contamination while feeding bottle baby kittens day and night is hard.

How serious and contagious is this ringworm business? While the kitties will be just fine in the long run, they will have to remain in the bathroom the whole time they are here and I won't be able to have any more kitties coming in the house until a month after these kiddos are gone and a subsequent deep cleaning of my home happens. 

Despite the work and exhaustion (did I mention fostering ringworm kittens is hard?) we had so many exciting things happening with them this week. I have to keep my phone out of the isolation room but I made an exception for one day so I could grab some photos. I had to thoroughly disinfect the phone afterwards but it was worth it.

Litter box users? YES! 

They always use the litter box at
the exact same time!

Climbers and jumpers? YES! They almost can get out of the tub on their own.

Paws over the side. He's oh-so-close!

Kitties who are excited to tell us how proud they are about weaning off their milk and are happy to show off their gruel eating faces? YES! (Gruel is how we transition them to more solid foods and is a mixture of kitty formula, canned baby food, and canned cat food.)

Huey is ready for his closeup.

Dewey wants you to know the harder you chew,
the more that comes out. And he wants you to see his baby teeth.

Louie wants you to know a gruel face, a pink nose, and
baby blue eyes are a great color combination.

With these kinds of pictures the ups outweigh the downs, don't ya think?

Foster Kitten Friday - Working for the Weekend

I'm not sure who worked harder this week and needs a break more. Me? My Duck Tales? Guess I'll let you be the judge.

Monday

Monday was weigh in day. As these babes are little they get weighed quite frequently but Monday is the day that counts because it's the day their weights are submitted to Simply Cats. It's also the day my postal scale I use for all my Etsy shipping does double duty. 

Side note: In the last couple months my Etsy shop has really taken off. My most popular items are the vaccination card holders - I've already sewn (and sold) 800 of them. (Go me!) The most popular fabric? The bright kitty cats, of course!

Everybody loves my kitty cat fabrics being weighed on my postal scale. But do real live kitty cats like being weighed on the postal scale? Heck no, especially since I make them sit in a little bin for their weights.

Huey tried to squeeze himself under the blanket.

Dewey proceeded to chew the blanket - and the metal tin.

Louie tried to make a run for it.

Tuesday

Tuesday is Tutorial Tuesday here at Deb's Days and Huey was a featured guest. This week we taught everyone how to make holders for plastic grocery bags. While Huey wasn't scheduled to have any speaking parts, he took it upon himself at the 49 second mark to make his noisy presence know.

Wednesday

Two of the little ducklings decided to reenact a prison escape. I partially cover their humble abode with a blanket so it's a bit darker for them during the day but somehow they climbed on top of the blanket and made their way out and about. 

Sorry kiddos, the camouflage isn't hiding you a darn bit.

Thursday

Not only did we have attempted escapees we had a couple over the wall, scampering about like cockroaches when you turn on a light. With the babies outgrowing their prison cell, on Thursday we moved them into a bigger and better joint - my favorite place to corral kitties - these popup pens. No more crawling out the top now!

Friday

Finally, TGIF! Mr. Huey, Dewey, and Louie have become active little ducks and are ready to explore a bit more space. I planned on putting them on the couch to scamper about (and get a kitty cat family photo), but I was a little concerned about something I saw on Mr. Dewey's little leg. After a trip back to Simply Cats, with the lights off and a black light shining on his back leg, the suspicions were confirmed. The green glow on the leg joint tells us he has ringworm.

Hard to see, but there is some fluorescent green there.

Dang. Now this contagious fungus changes things. We need to think through what my schedule will look like. How to protect them, me, and my work. We need to do some rethinking about what foster kitty life is going to look like in this house.  And just like that, I've already learned a new phrase - foster home biosecurity. 

Yeah, we definitely need a weekend. 

Sorry, kids. But know we're all in this together.

Foster Kitten Friday - The Ayes Have It!

Does everyone love snuggling with their stuffed animal mama?

Aye!

 What's that smell? Did someone poo and get it everywhere and on everyone else?

Aye!

Is your food yummy, Huey?

Aye!

Is your food yummy, Dewey?

Aye!

Is your food yummy, Louie?

Aye!

Is someone attempting a jailbreak?

Aye!

Anyone ready to wake up and see what this big wide world has to offer?

Huey

Dewey

Louie

Look like the Ayes  Eyes have it! Guess we really will "see" you next week!

Foster Kitten Friday - A Week of L.A.M.B.S.

Happy Foster Kitten Friday! It sure has been a lamb kind of week and not just because these three little ones look like baby lambs, either. So what exactly is a lamb week? Read on to find out...

L=Laundry 

Oh my, the laundry. While these babies aren't nearly as messy as they will be when they get a bit older and start on gruel they are still plenty messy. Their faces, bottoms, and should I mention the pee? On my clothes, on their bedding and blankets (thankfully I made a bunch of blankets when I did the no-sew pet blanket tutorial), the warming disk covers (another thankful moment since I made a bunch of those when I did that sewing tutorial). So much laundry. So many blankets. 

A=Alarms

As the babies need to eat every two hours both day and night there is only one way to make sure it happens. 

Alarms.

Instead of setting an entire 24 hours' worth of alarms I finally realized it made much more sense to use the timer. Hmm...am I waiting for bread to rise or am I raising kittens?! With me shutting it off when it’s time to feed and starting it again when they’ve finished I've touched my phone more in the last week than I have in the entire last year.

M=Mothering

Newborn orphaned kitties should be with their kitty cat mama for a reason. Mama feeds them, cleans them, licks them so they go potty (and then eats it), and keeps them in line. With no mama around, it's the foster parent's job to make it happen (minus the licking/eating part). I have them corralled in a plastic bin right in the bedroom. It's quiet there during the day and gives me easy access at night for feedings. 

Did you know bottle babies aren't fed on their backs like human babies? On the tummy it is. I have a couple who like to be helpers...

and one who goes all spread eagle on me.

Then there is bathroom time. Baby kitties can't go on their own so they have to be stimulated by the foster parent every single time they are fed. No matter how hard you try - whether you use a tissue or wipe or soft cloth - you will inevitably wind up with a handful of pee. And many times you'll wind up with some poo somewhere. Which leads me to the next letter...

B=Butts

These poor little guys have had a bottom problem this week. As in something that should be coming out from there isn't. We've tried several things, including some warm water butt baths, but they needed to have even more of an intervention yesterday at Simply Cats. (Remember, Simply Cats is a no-kill feline shelter here in Boise and the only shelter I work with.) Did you know there was such a thing as a kitty enema? Well, my three little fellas could tell you all about it. And I could tell you how it's done because I came home with the equipment to give additional ones to them, if needed. Let's hope their systems take care of themselves and plumber Deb doesn't have to be called.

S=Strikingly Similar

Do you remember the song from Sesame Street, One of These Things?

One of these things is not like the others,

One of these things just doesn't belong,

Can you tell which thing is not like the others

By the time I finish my song?

Well, the song definitely does not apply to these babes. They ALL look like the others and with their umbilical cords now gone they have become impossible to identify. Seriously, these are three separate pictures of three different kittens. Yowza.

So what can we expect next week? Look at this little one's eyes. 

I think we might just "see" something new!

Foster Kitten Friday - A New Edition

Yep, the day is officially here. It's a new edition of Foster Kitten Friday! 

Three little sweet orphaned kitties arrived this week. Three little kitties who were just born on Tuesday. And boy, are they little. 

And cute. 

And they look just alike. 

Right now the only way I can tell them apart is by the length and shape of their still-attached umbilical cords. Don't worry, umbilical cords are normal for kitties this age. They've dried up and will fall off soon.

Official names will come later, but because I can't tell one from the other right now we're going with:

*Stubby. Short and stubby cord.

*Curly. Curly cord.

*Longboard. A cord reaching past his(?) legs. 

See the top little kitty in the picture? That's Longboard.

Names, even temporary ones, are important at this age because I need to take daily weights to make sure they are gaining and not losing. 

Yeah, little one, I don't like to see my weight either.

They spend a lot of time sleeping at this age. Their preference is to be curled up together, and when one wanders away from the group I'll know about it because I'll hear it about it. They have all found their voice.

While two may be asleep, number three is looking to be reunited.

Eating is another pleasure for them. They need to be bottle fed every two hours - around the clock - so my phone alarm is set all night long to make sure they don't miss a meal. Somehow they think one hour forty five minutes is a better nighttime feeding schedule. Again, they let me know they are ready for an early buffet. Yep, nights are long around here. 

When was the last time you had a milk mustache both day and night?

The tiny bottle is bigger than these little foster babies.

Welcome to our home, little lambs!