Boy or Girl?

If you click on the image you'll get a larger size.  Take a peek and guess before reading more...






This is Lily.  Yup, a girl.  Those little freckles on her make her look very male doesn't it?
I'm also in love with the spot on the bottom of her foot.  She's just one for freckles.

in regards to my last "I'm worried" post, I'm still worried.  at least Lily isn't grinding her teeth as much recently, but she and Nigel are back under 400g, and Bug is 409.  By now they should be rounding 450g... *sigh*

*edited to add that after I posted this I fed them, and Lily was back to grinding her teeth this morning. I heard back from the shelter, and they are going to schedule a vet visit for them.  Hopefully we can get them back on the right track

Mancat Monday

Since the loss of Ollie, I really haven't had a "Mancat" in the household.  Just a bunch of guy cats.. you know that age right?  the age that if they were human they would have just moved out of the house with milk crates for bookshelves and narry a vegetable in the house.

Well recently I've noticed that Eli has started making the move to Mancat.  He just seems older and more mature.  He also seems to have an adult cat face now (bout time since he is 9 years old).  and most noticeably is that his face is mostly clean these days.

See Eli is a child of calcivirus.  He had it very badly as a kitten several times and as a result both of his eyes have blocked tear ducts.  As a kitten and young adult this resulted in very stained face and extremely crusty ears as the eyes and the ears are connected.  I took him to a holistic vet who was versed in laser therapy and she "lasered" his face below his eyes to help and it did.  So now his ears aren't nearly as bad as they were, but since a lot of time has passed since he got the laser treatment, his face was starting to get worse.

Before Ollie passed, I once told Eli that if he didn't get someone to clean his face soon I was going to have to do it for him.  He does not much like that and the next time I saw him his face was clean.  I thought it was a fluke until it happened again and again.

But now he has turned into a full fledged Mancat, I no longer have to remind him. His face has almost constantly been clean.

It is funny that Eli is the more dominant alpha cat since his nick name is squeaky.  he has the thinnest of meows that is very much a squeak.

too many little things

So, after albon, marquis paste, probiotics, pumpkin and now raw food (which is a story on its own) the kittens still have pretty lose and varying in color stools.  I'm concerned.

Lily is still grinding her teeth when she chews.  it is a horrid sound that sounds to me like nails on a chalk board.

Jordan still is rubbing her nose with her paw and squinting her eyes with out any overt signs of inflammation or discharge.

a kitten pooped outside of the box multiple times Friday to Saturday night.

they are eating, they are active and playful, but I'm concerned with the variety of symptoms.  So I wrote in to the shelter and see what they want to do.

As for the raw...  well lets just say it wasn't what I was expecting.  Usually when I give kittens raw food they go nuts.  They get very possessive and fight each other for it.  This time Jordan got to it first and turned her nose up at it, which I think set the stage.  Bug nibbled at it, but for the most part they ignored it.  So I gave up and left them with out another option.  In the morning it was mostly gone which I'm glad for.

Yea! blogger is back

Sorry for the lack of update. I wanted to see what was going on before saying anything.

As we left it, I was going to get Marquis Paste for the kittens, and I did.  I dosed them all up, cleaned their litter boxes, and went to bed.  In the morning there was some very liquid stool in the boxes, and I was displeased, but not horribly unsurprised.  So I cleaned them up again, and went to work.

I came home at lunch time, and more liquid mucus filled stool, so I took it to the shelter to be tested.  This time no coccidia showed up, so I figured they needed a little non medical help.  I pulled out my good yogurt and some probiotics and offered it to the kittens.  I'm sad and a little happy I didn't bring my camera, because they did NOT want to swallow it so they had the worst (and most adorable) milk chins.  Which they immediately had to shake off so I was covered in yogurt.  Thankfully Jordan was interested in yogurt and we got cleaned up in no time.

Still liquid stool, but other major improvements in the kittens.  Bug has decided she wants to use the "Big Girl" boxes, and now uses the litter boxes that I set up for Jordan.  They all climb up on the couch now.  They are also fully back on food.  Before the Marquis Paste they weren't all that interested in it any more and were stand offish, but now Bug is getting possessive and growling over it.

So I decided to try pumpkin.  That too was summarily dismissed.  I think it was more because Jordan decided it was disgusting and so there for the kits stayed away.  So I covered it with another can of food that was full of gravy and Jordan came and munched on it, so hopefully...

Lily is eating food now, which is a big load off of me.  She totally rejected the milk I brought down yesterday, so I'm just going to monitor their weights and call it all good at this point..

Bug a boo

Jill commented about Beulah over at Love and Hisses.  Wondering if my little Bug might just not be a wee bit small.

Well she had been keeping up with her siblings weights until this bout with coccida coupled with her refusal of kitten milk.    Kittens that young have a very hard time eating enough calories to make up for the calories it takes to eat it (small mouths and all that) so I knew she was behind the nutritional eight ball before she started with the loose stools.  Then coccidia tends to make the colon move so fast to get them out that it barely has enough time to absorb the nutrients she is eating.
so I worry.

I worry she can't eat enough, I worry she might be getting dehydrated from all the poopin.  Heck I just worry... but then again I've got cause.  One of my previous "little girls" actually had a malformation of her internal organs and her stomach was up in her chest.  Mew was a precious little thing (actually looked a bit like Bug now that I talk about her)

Mew - click on her to see more photos of her with her brothers

Mew didn't make it.  But my next "little girl" did.  Tilly was one kitten to a pair of adult cats that were brought into the shelter together. I took them both, and they delivered very close to one another.   The room was FULL of kitteny goodness, but after a while they turn into a boat load of work.  I finally send them all back and waited for Tilly to put on weight. 

 Well while she waited, she found a way to make DH fall in love with her, and they have been a pair ever since (and she's now Kit and is still a very petite cat)

On a side note, I was considering knighting my kittens, so they would be Lady Lily, Sir Nigel and... Lady Bug.. :)