Today has been the busiest day I’ve had in ages. And now it’s after 2:00, which is way later than I usually get my entries posted, so I’m going to yammer on about the kittens a little, put up some pictures, and call it an entry.
The kittens are almost 12 weeks old. They’re all from the same litter, and they are ADORABLE.
However, they are also stinky. Because they have not only giardia, but also coccidia. Two of them seem to be mostly over it, but two of them are having diarrhea and one of them… oy. You don’t want to be eating if you’re reading this, trust me. He has pretty bad diarrhea, and – I warned you – his rectum is protruding about about inch from his body. The straining to poop is causing that, and when I asked the shelter manager what to do, she said that someone had recently told her to try a damp paper towel with sugar on it, held against the area. She hasn’t tried it herself, but said that she’d been told it worked well.
I know I’ve got cat foster parents out there – anyone ever heard of such a thing? I think if I can just get him past the diarrhea the area won’t be quite so enraged and things can go back to normal.
When Fred gets home, we’re going to give him a quick bath (the kitten, that is. Not Fred.) because every time he uses the litter box he gets poo all over his backside (again, the kitten. Not Fred.), and I’ve been wiping him down with baby wipes, but a) That apparently is quite uncomfortable, because the whole AREA is painfully swollen and b) The baby wipes aren’t getting the dried stuff off. Once the area’s clean, I guess we’ll give the sugar remedy a try.
Foster parents, if you’ve got suggestions, my ears are open!
I have a feeling that bleach is going to be my best friend for the forseeable future.
Want to meet the little monsters? You know you do. (By the way, I didn’t name them.)
Little Cal. She’s the only girl. She’s also the one who spends all her time kicking the other kitties’ butts. I love little torti kitties, they’re such characters.
Barrett. He’s so gorgeous, this picture doesn’t do him justice at all.
Smitty. You KNOW how I love the little orange tabbies! Smitty’s the least affected by the giardia and coccidia. He’s also the most apt to get into a fight with Little Cal.
Sad Eyes. The only way I can tell the difference between Sad Eyes and Smitty is that Sad Eyes is smaller. Well that, and he’s always got poo hanging off his back end. Yes, poor little Sad Eyes is the one with the issues. And yes, I promise I’ll never slap up a picture of said rectal issues, because no one really needs to see that. Sad Eyes is my personal favorite of the four, because all you have to do is touch him with one finger, and he purrs immediately, very loudly. Poor Sad Eyes.
All four kittens are pretty active. They all chase each other around and play, and they’re not so friendly they’ll come over and climb on me, but it’s only been a day. I suspect that they’ll be climbing on me soon enough. Sad Eyes is the friendliest, and despite the fact that I keep hurting him (ie, wiping his behind with a baby wipe), he keeps coming back over so I can pet him.
For the time being, obviously, we’re keeping them sequestered from our cats.
By the way, Rambo and Jodie were adopted Saturday evening – together. Yay!!!!
The other day Fred and I discussed the fact that we don’t have nearly enough carriers for the number of cats that we have. If, god forbid, we needed to evacuate, there’s no way on earth we could fit all four of our cats in the one cardboard carrier we have. So Saturday, knowing that I was going to need a decent carrier on Sunday anyway, I went to the pet store and bought a carrier with a door in the front AND a door in the top. I’m going to buy one more at a point in the near future, so that we’ll have three carriers. We can put Spot in one, Miz Poo in one, and Mister Boogers and Spanky in one.
Anyway, I brought the new carrier home and put it together, and within a minute, guess who was in it, checking it out?
He’s the nosiest Booger there ever was.