Reunion Failure

We lost a kitten.

Mom was nursing all of them and everything seemed fine. We checked them frequently. But on checking Saturday morning, one of the black and white kittens was dead, and Mom had left with one of the calicos (NOT the calico she'd had for the past week!). So we were left with one black and white kitten and one fat calico.

We are guessing that Mom just wasn't making enough milk for all four after a week of milk for just one. We should have known this, perhaps, but everyone we asked said it was best to try to reunite the kittens with Mom and their one sibling. Anyhow, when one of her kittens died she decided to high tail it with the original one she'd been feeding (not realizing she mistakenly grabbed the wrong one -- hey, it LOOKED like the original one!), thinking she might be able to save one from whatever had started killing the other three.

Lesson learned.

The remaining black and white one seems well enough. We are trying to strengthen him and get him up to speed with his fatter, fitter littermate. We are armed with lots of KMR, as well as a product we spotted in PetSmart - a SnuggleKittie. We had been discussing how the kittens seemed to be looking for Mom in between feedings last week, and we mused how nice it would be to have something they could snuggle up with and feel comforted by, some kind of surrogate mom. And then we found that someone else had already had the idea and developed and marketed it!

It looks promising. It is a largish plush cat. It has a "heart" that "beats" (run by batteries that are included), and two heat packs that are supposed to last 20 hours each, plus a terry pouch that will hold uncooked rice for heating in the microwave after the heat packs, which are activated by air exposure, run out of heat. (Of course, we are already using a heating pad.) It also has a spot where a nursing bottle can be placed so that the nipple protrudes from the cat's belly! It's all quite ingenious. The price at PetSmart is $29.99, a bit steep, but until competition arrives from other companies, they can get away with that price. Well, they can get away with it if the product works as advertised.

So far the product is doing what its packaging promised. The two remaining kittens have taken to the SnuggleKittie and are cuddled up, sleeping with it! We'll have photographs soon. Meantime, note that the company that makes the SnuggleKittie does donate their product to animal shelters and rescue groups, so check out how to help them out.

Also, since this blog is supposed to be about Ivan and Boo, rest assured that they are both just fine and as crazy and hilarious as ever. In fact, they seemed quite interested in the SnuggleKittie themselves!