7!?!?? Looking forward to the pics

 

Yep, 7. 6 of them are black or mostly black, but randomly there's one mostly white one that looks like it'll darken into a siamese/pointed looking adult. Weird. Mom is black as well.

 

There is always a rebel!

 

So many black kittens during the Halloween season will be fun to see! Will you do something to identify them (collars) or are you able to tell them apart? Our kittens came from a litter of 6 and 4 of them were black (2 boys/2 girls). The foster mom says that she couldn't tell them apart.

 

Ahh, so exciting! Can't wait for pictures, fingers crossed for all the babies!

 

Can't wait to see them! You are so great for fostering!!!

 

The single colorpoint is less of a mystery when I apply my dismal understanding of genetics... something about how if a black cat mates with a colorpoint, offspring are black, masking the fact that they were ever from colorpoint ancestry. However some may carry the colorpoint gene... so down the line, you could have two black cats mate with the recessive colorpoint gene and end up with a few color points mixed in the litter. Anyway, I think I kept that vague enough to kinda be accurate haha. I don't have a 100% full understanding of it.

Looking forward to pictures!

 

Whoa! 7 is a big litter! Bless you for taking them all in! It's always fun to see a family grow and their personalities develop. Hopefully many of them will get adopted together.

 

Two of them have tabby-ish markings (white eyeliner, a few white stripes on the head, but are mostly black), one is kind of a brownish/grayish/black, one is the white and the other three I *think* I'll be able to tell apart based on various small features (one I saw for sure has a white spot on its chest, and I haven't looked to see boys vs. girls yet).

They had breakfast this morning and someone had got poo all over everyone else, which mom hadn't cleaned up, so I wet-wiped everyone off as I fed them. They're sooooo tiny and frail looking, but plenty feisty, so I'm really hoping everyone will do well.

I'm hoping not to have to do collars to tell everyone apart...I've never had to before with a batch. Trying to keep up my perfect record, lol.

Pics soon. Just got home and gotta feed everyone first.

 

Can't wait to see pictures of the new ones. Thank goodness they came to your house as it sounds like Momma might be a bit overwhelmed.

 

WOW! You've got your hands full, huh!!??

 

Hands full...yes. Mama from this batch is going to be Nala....and she's not nearly as accomplished at mothering as Minerva, from my other batch of fosters, is. I'm doing a lot of extra work with her babies to keep everyone fed and happy. She's been here 2 days now and is settling down a bit and spending more time with the babies again. Everyone still seems to be doing well. And finally, PICTURES!

Mama Nala:



I think the babies might be closer to three weeks old (based on the milestones they've got) but a bit stunted (based on their size).









And just the babies:

 

SO CUTE. I love the little white one amongst the cute black ones.

 

Cuteness overboard! So adorable.

 

You sound so busy but so happy, I love what you do. Good Luck.

 

Oh my gosh look at all those kittens! Nala looks like she's taking good care of them. I'm kind of jealous that she's surrounded by a bunch of kittens and I'm not

 

7 is hard work as very experienced Mamma Tory taught me! Nala looks pretty young, Tory was on litter number 5 and knew what she was doing but still struggled a bit with 7. Good on you for being 2iC Mamma. Nala sure has her paws full!

Oh, and the babies are BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!!!!

 

They are so cute! The last one really shows the tabby stripes on that kitten on the left. How unusual, he's a black tabby!

 

Well things have not been going well at all with this batch. Mama Nala has decided that she has no interest whatsoever in the babies and now spends her days diligently avoiding and ignoring them. I lock her in a crate with them a few times a day and she feeds them (she's so full of milk it makes me sore just looking at her), albeit grudgingly. Meanwhile, I've taken over mothering duties for these guys, and I'm not very accomplished at it either. All 7 are still alive, and eating "goop" (meat baby food, wet cat food, ground up kitten crunchies, warm water, kmr milk powder, probiotics and pumpkin all smooshed together), but we're having problems with diarrhea now and the shelter vet is trying to help get it under control. If we can get through the next week or so, I think everyone will be in the clear. Also, the poo is getting everywhere and on everything, including the kittens. I'm going to end up having to wash it off them, I think. Wet wipes just aren't touching the mess at this point.

They've been waking me up every few hours during the night for food, so I haven't slept properly in a week. Luckily my other foster mom, Minerva, is doing a great job, so all I have to do for them is clean the litter every day and admire how wonderful her babies look.

 

Aww, poor things. That's so sad when that happens with Moms and the babies.

Regarding the baths, I usually use a large square tupperware container with just a tiny bit of warm water in the bottom and stand them in it, and a really wet wash cloth (so you don't have to immerse them in water and soak them) to wipe them off. Then, make if you have a heating pad, wrap them in towels and put them on the heating pad until they dry off. Poop is pretty easy to get off of them, pee is another story. I had a batch of fosters who had been sleeping in their litter box at the shelter and they smelled SO bad. It took a couple of weeks to get rid of the pee...

I hope all goes well in the next week with the feedings and you manage to get some sleep! It sounds like you're doing an amazing job.

 

Oh, so sorry to hear this...keep up your great work. 7 babies is a lot to care for. I take it Minerva can't take in a couple to help out or is that just not the way things work? What is the age difference between Minerva and Nala's litters? Enough questions...get some sleep

 

Oh I hope that it all turns good for the kittens (and you!). Please take it easy and try to get some rest when you can.

 

They all got a gentle bath tonight. I used the bathroom sink. Filled it about 2 inches deep with warm water and set them in it. Held them with my right hand (keeping head above water, supporting their weight) and gently rubbed and scrubbed with my left. Once the water turned yellow/brown (oh yeah, it was lovely), I'd pick up the baby and hold it while I drained the sink and refilled it. Most only needed the water changed once, though for two of them I did change it twice. I'd run the shower before we did this, so the bathroom was all warm and steamy (my glasses fogged up) and each one was dried as best we could with a towel before we moved on to the next one. They're currently still hanging out in a crate in the bathroom and I've now scrubbed the (disgusting) floor in their laundry room. At the moment, everyone is basically clean. The little white one actually purred while I was massaging him and then perched on my hand like a little king until it was time to dry him. I like him...he's spunky. (He then immediately pooped on the towel we were trying to dry him with...he's such a cat.)

Minerva's batch is 5.5 weeks, exactly. I'd guestimate Nala's at 4-4.5 weeks, so maybe 7 to 10 days behind them is all. But the size difference is extraordinary...Minerva's are at least double, maybe triple the size of Nala's biggest ones (and maybe quadruple the size of the Nala's runt). The shelter suggested I see if Minerva would be receptive to some extra babies. I tried one yesterday and she didn't attack it or anything, but she also didn't seem remotely inclined to take care of it (it cried and she walked away, and her own babies are so big that it can't fight its way to a nipple, and the minute her own babies finished, Minerva was done). And being that her babies are so healthy and Nala's not, I didn't want to risk making an otherwise healthy litter ill by prolonged contact.


So, for five minutes anyway, everyone is clean and happy and fed and quiet. We'll see how long it lasts.


Also, I can roughly tell everyone apart now and was able to sex most everyone during their baths.

White one (male)
Black "black" one (looks very dark next to the others, who are more chocolate): female, I think. Only one I'm not sure of.
Thing 1 ---male
Thing 2 ---male (twins in all of their markings)
Runty - female
Big tabby --male (darker, longer hair)
Little tabby--female ("true" black tabby visible in the photos)

 

Hopefully mama cat doesn't have 'Something'...that's putting her off of wanting to take care of her babies!!
Keep an eye on her for any symptoms...
You certainly have your hands full!
Prayers and hugs!

 

Hopefully mama cat doesn't have 'Something'...that's putting her off of wanting to take care of her babies!!
Keep an eye on her for any symptoms...
You certainly have your hands full!
Prayers and hugs!

That's a good point. Sometimes the Mom can reject kittens if she's sick (or if they're sick for that matter). Does she seem to be in any pain when she's nursing? Is she eating/drinking/peeing/pooping ok? It could also be that she's very young and inexperienced. I've seen feral Mom's disown their kittens too.

 

Sounds like the white-furred male needs a royal name...can't think of any suggestions off hand. I wonder if momma will come around? Thanks for fostering. I look forward to reading updates.

 

I caught Nala in the box with the kittens last night of her own accord after they had their bath. When she first stopped nursing them, she acted like she was sore. Now that I've taken over feeding them and they're eating some solids and not so frantically hungry, she's slowly paying some attention to them again. I wonder if, in their desperate hunger, they were chewing on her or hurting her somehow--7 kittens is a lot of use of her poor little nipples. She hasn't acted ill or lethargic or anything else that would make me think she wasn't feeling well.


By the way, the clean kittens last approximately 12 minutes before one of them pooed and then walked through it.


And I weighed them all last night. The biggest one (thing 2) is about 10 oz. The rest are averaging about 8 ounces. The runt is 5 ounces.

For comparison, Minerva's babies, roughly 10 days older, are all 1 lb 6oz to 1 lb 9 oz. Minerva's biggest baby is 5 times the weight of Nala's runt.