So our house was destroyed by the tornado 2 weeks ago, and while moving into an apartment while the house stuff is being handled, Patches, our two year old cat, busts out of her carrier and runs off. We’ve been looking for her and I think she may still be in the area of the apt. complex.
BUT today while I was out buying a small animal trap in hopes of catching her, my wife went to our former home. Our neighbor, whose home was also destroyed said he found some things of mine blowing around. Old paperwork, really. You see the shed was destroyed also and the NC baptist Ministry men used a bulldozer to push the debris to the front for pickup. My wife heard weak crying in the debris andfound these two.
As you can see, they are very young and small. The wife said they were starving so perhaps they were somehow seperated from the mother and hid in the debris. I’m terrified to think there may have been other cats and kittens hiding in the debris when it was 'dozed to the front othe house and only these 2 survived. She took them home, got kitten milk and bottles and well, lets face it, looks like we’ve got 2 kittens. I certainly can’t kick them out and the wife is a cat person. the little gray one walks kinda funny, so we’re afraid she may have been hurt. I made appointments for them at a vet tomorrow. (Yeah, I’m a softy. despite all of my problems like house and every damn thing we owned being destroyed by an act of Nature I can’t NOT take care of these helpless kittens).
I’m still going to look for Patches. We want her back.
But my questions:
I’ve never had a kitten as young as these two. Are they mewling because they’re hungry, scared or maybe injured? Or do they just do that? They seem to be sleeping now, but when they are awake they are voracious and vocal.
Any small kitten tips will be appreciated.
Also: Names. We like Dusty for the gray one (female) but got nothing for the male one. My wife likes “Snoopy”. But its flexible if anyone has better ideas.
I got nuttin’ except to say how sorry I am that Patches bolted, after all that you (and she!) have been through. Good for you for rescuing the little ones, and I hope you and Patches find each other again very soon.
They’re adorable. If they’re eating well, don’t worry about injuries. They are so very young, they probably miss their mom. You might try to feed them some milk especially for cats, sold in the catfood section of your grocery store, or at your vets’.
He seems to be polydactyl, did I see extra toes there?
ETA: if he is polydactyl, Ernest or Hemingway would be good names.
Not a small kitten expert, but human babies are either eating, sleeping or pooping most of the time (and crying if one of three is right).
I do know(?) that very young kittens don’t poop/pee unless mama licks their butts (I’d recommend a washcloth - your tongue probably isn’t rough enough). Not sure when they grow out of that - but maybe crying because constipated? Have they pooed?
Good on you for saving these babies despite losing your house! They are super-cute of course.
I found my older cat starving when she was around the same age (3-4 weeks) and she looked very much like your gray kitten. I’ve also raised a couple litters of kittens from even younger ages. It’s VERY good that there are two of them, there can be some psychological problems with cats that are orphaned that young and raised without littermates (see my cat, she is crazy and probably wouldn’t be if I had gotten another kitten when she was little).
They are almost certainly so vocal because they had been starving, and are now discombobulated. That should stop once they’ve made up lost ground with eating, they’re getting all their needs met, and they realize mom’s not coming back. It’s a good thing your wife bought bottles and milk, they should definitely still be milk-fed at this age, although you’ll probably be able to wean them to dish-feeding (milk - no cat food or meat necessary for another few weeks) soon or even now. You really can’t feed them too much at this age either, and especially since you don’t know how long they went hungry; if they are awake and yelling, offer food.
You should try to stimulate them to pee and poop until they demonstrate they can take care of it themselves (they are at around the right age to have control of it, but you don’t want them getting constipated or a UTI), and begin to litter train them. I just used a damp cloth or paper towel and wiped them gently until they went.
Keep in mind also that if you don’t want three cats or can’t keep them at this stage in your lives, you will probably be able to rehome adorable rescued tornado-kittens easily. But they can definitely benefit from your TLC at this age, kittens this small don’t do well in shelters.
Since you’re going to the vet tomorrow (awesome!) they will probably have some good advice too.
awwww. they look about 10-15 days old, they have mitten feet, open eyes, and wisker puffs. thank goodness y’all found them!
yep, you want to get them to the vet asap. keep them warm and hydrated until you can. feed them anytime they want food. and yes, they want food constantly, they will suck down a whole bottle at a time. there is nothing like a full kitten belly, so cute! they feed about every 3-4 hours, don’t worry about waking them up, they will do that on their own and let you know very insistantly that it is time for another bottle.
for ease and faster bottle prep, the cans are great! mixing up the powder is a bit long with a screaming kitten in your ear. also you don’t have to think about too thick or thin.
lots of cuddling helps them stay warm, again they look old enough to handle temp. control on their own. they are no doubt very upset about the last few days, so being held and cuddled may be welcomed.
I like Storm for the grey one, and Tornado or Twister for the other one. I know that’s a bit cheesy, but they are nice names. They are absolutely adorable. When my daughter gets out of the bath and I show her this, she’s going to explode with awwwness.
Its no surprise that the wife plaintively asked “if we can’t find Patches can we keep them?”. Honestly, even if we do find Patches, we’ll probably keep them. At this rate I’ll never get a dog.
Poor Jet Jaguar. I think he feels ignored. he keeps coming to me for scratches right now. Banshee doesn’t like other cats so she’s keeping to herself…which is normal for her anyway. She’ll go off and sleep until I go to bed and then jump on the bed with me.
My family once raised a kitten from a bit younger than that. (Its mother had been taken along with some other cats to the city pound, but they’d overlooked this one.) At first we fed it milk using a human baby’s bottle, and its mouth coped with that fine. However, it grew up without some of the socialisation that its mother would have given it – nothing too serious, but it had a habit of invading the territory of neighbouring cats, and trying to play with them, and ignoring their signs that they really did not welcome it. On the other hand, it was very friendly with human beings, especially those who had been its foster parents.
My total WAG is that these look 3-4 weeks old. The emergence of their fierce little teeth will be the determining factor - do they have widdle fangs yet?
Years ago, I found a kitten hiding near my doorstep. Very young, obviously malnourished. I took it in for the weekend, since the Humane Society was closed 'til Monday.
On Monday, literally as I was handing the box with the kitten in it to the staff at the shelter, the kitten went into convulsions and died. “So, has anyone besides you had contact with this animal?” :eek:
It turned out that it had rabies, which was likely why its mother abandoned it. I had to get the shot series- along with my wife, my infant son, and our friend.
I’m not saying that’s the case with your kittens- obviously, the weather is the more likely culprit… but be careful. I’m glad to see you’re getting them checked out.
If I ever get a pair of kittens, I’d like to name them Rahu and Ketu. Those are the Vedic names for the moon’s ascending and descending nodes (when the moon is at a node, there can be an eclipse). They also just sound like good cat names.
Taz would also be a good tornado-associated cat name, after the cartoon Tasmanian Devil.
Ahh, the tiny kitten teeth rabies shot. I hate that.
My vet told me once (while I was showing him the latest rescue kitten to bite me, actually) that it’s pretty rare for an eensy kitten (read: less than 3 weeks old) to have rabies, because at those ages, any bite that would give it rabies would likely kill it outright (older cats, even a rat bite will kill a tiny kitten). Still, he always said better safe than sorry.
I LOVE that age estimator - it’s so nice to see them progress through the ages. It also underscores just how tiny and pathetic they are when they’re really young.
Also, re: the OP - looks like you’ve got yourself a pair of kittens!
(As for your other cat, there’s a good chance she’ll come back soonish - we had a cat that we had to leave in the house during Hurricane Hugo, and he was right there by the house when we returned. As soon as we came back and he saw us, he hightailed it off in a huff for not ruling the universe like we’re supposed to and letting things all go to hell. He came back about a week later, looking quite full of himself, and magnanimously forgave us our inequities.)
Congratulations! They’re yours now! Same thing happened with us and Toby. You can’t help it when they steal your heart.
As for making yourself sick over others that may have been lost, I had to learn recently, after doing years of cat rescue, that you can’t save them all. I was trying to lure an apparent stray to get more comfortable getting closer, moving the food bowl further and further towards the garage until she was eventually inside eating, so I could trap her. The last time she showed up she was limping on 3 legs and I could see puncture wounds in her rear left paw. She was in the garage eating and I tried to sneak out the back door to come around the side and close her in there, but she heard the door, took off faster than I could get around, and I’ve never seen her since. I spent countless nights putting food out and calling to her, but she’s just gone. I hope someone else captured her, or that she really did have a home and was just let out while she was in heat, and went home when she was injured and is fine now.
You can only do what you can do. And saving those 2 is awesome, so you can’t beat yourself up over not saving more (that may not even exist anyway).
We’re hoping to find Patches too. I checked with the Haven and the local shelters, including animal control. there was a family looking for their cat there also. I flet so bad for the daughter. She was probably only 20, but she was crying so much for her lost cat “Johnson”.
I am putting a small animal trap outside tonight hoping Patches will wander into it. Since we’ve only moved into this apartment complex a week ago (the day she got lost) she has no real way of “steering her way home”. If our house wasn’t destroyed I’d be more confident. She’d be able to find her way home. Our best hope is that she wandering around hte place and she’ll go into the trap. I’ll be checking it every hour or so all night. (no sleep for me, I guess).
Then again, after 8 days outside she could be pregnant. Fates cruel joke is we were discussing getting her fixed and chipped hours before the tornado obliterated the house. Either way we’re hoping that if Patches makes it back to us she’ll be a mentor of sorts for these kittens. She’s very playful and sweet when she’s not scared out of her mind.
These little kittens are so cute and tiny. Just looking at them makes me want to protect them and cuddle them. Jet Jaguar will warm up to them in time, I’m sure. He’s like that. Banshee will be a problem. She’s so insanely jealous we’ll have to keep an eye on her around them. Up until recently she would bully Patches. (Banshee would sit in a doorway specifically to block Patches from going into a room where we were. Patches was intimidated by her size. But then Patches grew up a bit and started challenging her. Like most Bullies, Banshee backed down. Banshee likes people, but not other cats. But being around 15 yrs old, she mostly relies on her hissing. She’s not a fighter. She won’t challenge Jet at all as he’s bigger and five years younger.)
