Tuesday, August 30, 2022

Caramel and the Sundae Kittens


 

 

Sunday I picked names and took the first set of baby photos to share them with you. 

So,  without further ado:

Cherry - female
 
Maraschino (she has a white front paw)


Hot Fudge - female

Sprinkles - male

Fluff (first born)  male

Butterscotch - male 

Monday afternoon we had eyeballs 








Monday, August 29, 2022

Caramel and her kittens


 


In the beginning of August, I was offered a pregnant kitty.  I was itching for more than two kittens at a time so I jumped on it. 

She came to me with the name Cammie but I considered renaming her Caramel since she was so sweet.  My husband suggested w could name one of the kittens Hot Fudge and I was sold. 

Caramel took her sweet time with her pregnancy.  She was with me three weeks before she went into labor. It was a difficult time as Caramel had multiple issues.  The biggest was that she continually urinated and dedicated on the couch. I'm not sure if it was because she was afraid of what might be outside the window or if she was trying to leave a message for my neighbor cat.  After a few days of it, and her plaintiff cries while staring out the window,  I decided to try limiting her space.  My kitten room is rather large and large amounts of territory can be overwhelming.  I put her in the bathroom instead and she seemed to be much happier. She didn't scream at the window anymore and all output was appropriately contained. 

We did run into another issue.  She was getting so large she couldn't clean her rear and she had quite a bit of diarrhea.  I had to clean her behind frequently and the smell was pretty bad.  I had the feeling that the diarrhea was kitten related either hormonal or the kittens rolling around on her intestines.. I was working on seeing if we could get her fecal tested to be safe when babies happened. 


The difficult part of fostering a pregnant cat is you can't be with them 24/7. On Wednesday I got up and went to feed her.  She didn't eat her dinner but other than that I didn't see any initial signs of labor 

I sat with her for a few minutes.  She seemed off. I sat with her a few more.  Finally I saw a contraction and Caramel looked a bit tired.  She wasn't keen on letting me get a good look at anything and I really needed to make a decision if I was going to go to work or if we had a problem  so I pulled her out of her carrier. No discharge visible. No kittens born.  Her rear end was all wet and it almost looked like there was puss. I was trying to assess what I was looking at when Caramel said no more and left.  She walked away just fine and went into her box and had another contraction. 

I let my coworker know that I was probably going to be late to work, and while I was doing that she had another contraction and something felt off. I pulled her out of the box again and more wetness and there was a protrusion but it still didn't look right.  I've gone through a lot of births and I was uncomfortable with what I was seeing. It was almost as if the kitten was being pushed out but it wasn't actually coming out. 

I called the after hours number for the rescue and was looking for permission to bring her to work with me to watch but if there was an issue we could deal with it or if they wanted me to take the day off work and bring her down to them.  They opted for the latter and so off I went. 

Long story short,  because details aren't really important, about 45 minutes later we had a kitten delivered naturally. I may or may not have been over reacting. All that matters is we had six healthy kittens and Caramel did an amazing job.  She's been overly protective and didn't want me to touch them for the first day and then she didn't like it when I made them mew

Even now she's not a fan but she's tolerant.

The kittens aren't that large, but they do seem advanced in motor control.  And since we now have eyeballs (they opened while I was at work today.   Day five if you're counting)  

I've picked names and I'll share those with you tomorrow 

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