Hectic!

I was prompted to write a blog post by none other than my little sister. I thought I'd better get on with it considering her and reading...well it has to be good to keep her interest.

So in the process of trying to write this blog I've had to attend the needs of the new kitten and rush another foster kitten off to the vet. Today has been one of those days.

I'll begin at the beginning.

Since last vet visit where none of the kittens graduated to adoption and I returned home with them all Ranga and Ruby began sneezing late Tuesday night and onto Wednesday. Rose however showed no signs and was eating like a regular little horse. I was sure this Friday two more kittens might be going to sleep.

Nice pic of the twins, Ranga being unsociable

Smokey was hovering still and being a regular pain trying to get him to gain weight at all. I found his secret. That little ball of fur will do anything to get to chicken. Swipe you with claws, bite your fingers if they so much as smell like chicken and even launch himself off things at you and climb towards your hands meowing the whole time. It has been painful - ouch claws and teeth - but rewarding to supplement what he's already eating with some chicken.

Did you mention chicken? ~ Smokey

Squeak terrorizes little Smokey as she's not got the whole room to roam. With all these cat flu scares they've been secluded to their medium sized cage. Thus since she's shown no signs I bring her into the lounge and let her chase a feather wand. Well a feather wand that did have red feathers and little sparkly tinsel streamer type things but is now featherless and only has 3 strands of sparkly tinsel left on it (eyes Terra and Leo). She bounds around after those few strands of tinsel and I work off some of her extra energy.

Play time yet? ~ Squeak

Thursday morning before work I found Ranga with his eye stuck shut. My first thought was oh no flu! My second thought was it only affected his right eye. I bathed it and he could open it. Ruby and Ranga had stopped sneezing so I began to hope that maybe their early vaccinations and separation from the actual infected kittens has helped them avoid the worst of it. They also began gaining again, more on Ruby's end as she had her vaccination and then hovered around the high 600's. She's since broken the 700's and is heading upwards which is another sign that they're doing OK.

I ain't feeling so good ~ Ranga

Friday got them all packed up and ready, drove out to the shelter only to find vet day had been cancelled. I was bummed. Fortunately I needed to pick up stock - and ended up taking on another kitten.

Originally Rose - Who is over 1 kilo - and Squeak who is a decent and into-everything 850 grams were going to stay at the shelter and get passed on Tuesday. So I would have been going home with icky eyed Ranga, Smokey and Ruby. I saw how many kittens were in quarantine and asked if it would be OK to just take the entire group home for the next four or so days.

I didn't want them getting sick after all I've done to keep them healthy. I didn't want to burden the shelter staff with two more cages to clean. I also couldn't stand the idea of Squeak or Rose being in cages half or less than what they've had for the past weeks/months they've been with me. And really I already had 3 to clean up and feed what were two more? So I returned home with six.

I mean who can resist this face?
She's grown into such a pretty girl

So...We're staying? ~ Rose

Six? You think I can't count, right? I did mention I'd picked up another one when I thought two were going to stay...

Meet Buster Blues. I take no responsibility for his name. The shelter manager mentioned calling him Blue off handed and my mother mentioned Buster. Saves me from naming him.

Grotty little boy after I picked him up (food build up on nose)

Apparently his sibling was found this morning ice cold. Unfortunately he didn't make it. At the time his sibling was found Buster was fine but a staff member noticed he was lethargic and cold so they thought he might be heading the same direction as his sibling. While I was organizing supplies for my hungry little kittens Buster was being passed around and held against people to keep him warm.

Such a hard life being passed around to sleep on people...

So I now have a needy, scrawny but adorable little guy to hopefully stack some grams on.

In the process of trying to write this I've been syringing milk into said pipsqueak and went in to get photos of Ranga. Well his eye was still icky and inflamed and he 'needed' to see a vet. I wanted to know whether it was flu - which I now doubted - or a serious scratch. From experiences with Terra getting too full of herself with Leo I knew eye scratches could be pretty bad and Terra's had never looked as bad as his did.

My eye hurts... ~ Ranga

So dropping everything I got the okay to get him to a vet. Last thing I wanted to do was leave it and for him to get worse over the weekend. Being a long weekend the penalty rates of a weekend or even Monday visit would cost the shelter a small fortune.

Thankfully Ranga's eye was checked out to be badly inflamed but no ulcers could be found on it. He's got some drops to have, lucky kitty.

So between juggling meds, letting Squeak out for runs, feeding Smokey chicken, syringe feeding Buster and generally cleaning these little guys up I'm going to be one busy little person.

Forgive me sister if I'm a bit slow with updates.