Hissing kittens are just adorable. It’s also funny when they jump diagonally with an arched back and fluffed tail. Most kittens think they are much bigger and much, much more dangerous than they actually are. Truly, kittens ARE dangerous…it’s quite possible to pass out from their sheer cuteness.
Where in LA County are you?
Let me know what happens with the vet.
I’ve been looking at getting cats either the last weekend in October or the first weekend in November, and better from you than anywhere else, if they’re able to be adopted out.
Judge for yourself: hissing kittens
Note that I know absolutely NOTHING about raising baby kitties as I ask this – does the vet say they’re big enough that they don’t need their nether regions stimulated to get them to go to the bathroom? If unsure, it might be a good idea to make sure they’re ALL going (not that I know how that would be accomplished. God, I am an un-helpful buttinski, aren’t I?)
Now that I’ve finished being a pain in the ass: thank god for you! Congratulations on your furry little brood, and I hope your temporary cat-motherhood proves both uneventful and inexpensive.
SQUEEEEEEE!!! melt
I can’t have kittens. I live in a studio. I have a wonderful adult kitty who doesn’t dive bomb me from the rafters at 3 AM. Kittens totally would. I’ll have to wait until I have a bigger house before I contemplate kittens.
Your kittens are absolutely precious. I wish I had a bunch of kittens to play with right now. I’m jealous!
Okay, just got back from the vet. We have a great report on all of them.
All kitties’ lungs and hearts sounded normal, and their eyes and noses were bright and clear (if dirty from sloppily lapping up milk replacer). Their temperatures were all in the normal range (ugh, those poor kitties! that’s a big thermometer for a little butt!), and their ears, though dirty, weren’t too bad–no ear mites or the like. There was no evidence of diarrhea or other stomach upset, and we hadn’t noticed any sneezing or coughing.
Little seal point kitty (Frank, because of his blue eyes) was looked at carefully when I described his more lethargic initial appearance. But, everything checked out just fine with him–the vet clinic director who looked at him first before the doctor came felt it was probably just his personality…he’s just more mellow. Both the director and the doctor gave him a good listen to, and there was nothing they noticed out of the ordinary with him. He has shown plenty more life since that first impression.
All four kittens are males. We should call their cage the bachelor pad.
All four kittens were given wormer (heh, pyrantel–same stuff I give our horse), as it is assumed that they would have them. All four have fleas, of course, as we noticed; the recommended treatment by both the director and the doctor is a warm bath in Dawn soap, being careful to keep their heads above water the entire time. Fleas carry tapeworms–ick.
Also, surprisingly, all kittens appear to be about 6 weeks old. They have teeth, and their back teeth are coming in. This means they don’t need milk replacer and we can work on weaning. We’re to mix their food with the replacer for a week or so; within 2 weeks, they should be fully transitioned to kitten chow.
The only thing we didn’t do was test for FIV/feline leukemia. The test that checks for both is $45 per cat, and that was a little pricer for us in combination with everything else. If we do keep one, of course we’ll be running that test–and letting any prospective adopting home know they should do the same. The vet said that if one is infected, usually all are as it is passed through saliva, but it’s not 100%.
Now how funny is this–I’m a coupon freak. A few months ago, I got a bag of kitten chow because it was on sale and coupled with a coupon, it was free. I didn’t know what I was going to do with it, except maybe occasionally mix it with our cat’s food on occasion for a treat, or give it away to someone with a kitten. Looks like that someone is us.
Happy Scrappy, if you are seriously interested, PM me and I’ll share more details. 
Squee[sup]4[/sup]
They are just toooo squeeee. mew! mew! mew!
Things seem to be going swimmingly, Ruffian, that was well-handled-- and you picked a good guy!
As you’re pregnant, be sure that your wonderful man is handling the litterbox chore: Toxoplasmosis is a real concern.
Why no, I don’t need cute widdle kiddens right now, nope; I’m sure of it.
Even though I’m short of barn cats right now. Nope, I’m sure I don’t need cute widdle kiddens.
Even though I resuced a feral kidden two weeks ago, that has now disappered into the main living area of the house. She only comes out at night to feed, and I’ve nicknamed her Vampira. But I don’t need her, she’s just here until someone on Craigslist needs a wild, feral, scratching kidden with wild eyes. Yup, I give it another day or two until someone idiot needs a kidden with her potential.
PS. Ruffian, I know you from the Chronicle forums. You should know that kiddens are the ponys of the feline world. Run away whilst you still can!
Kittens had their de-fleaing bath today, and good Lord.
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There is nothing more pathetic than a tiny, soaking wet kitty mewing while submerged in soapy water.
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Except, perhaps, removing said kitty from the submerged water and feeling (and seeing) their entire body tremble and shiver for ages after, despite being dried and warm.
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Kitties of all sizes hate having their nails trimmed. Ouch.
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Fleas are fucking superpowered. After 5min of soaking, we removed kitties and the fleas just fell off of them onto the towel. But then a few of those little bastard bugs sprang back to life after 5-10min of playing dead. WTH? Thankfully, they were slow, easily caught, and squished.
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Kitties like being rubbed dry, but may assume you’re mom trying to stimulate their bladders. Some dribbling occurred.
Meanwhile, I called Cats in Need. She’s interested in the kittens when they’re closer to 8 weeks (though she’s not taking any black cats with Halloween coming, so Formal Kitty will need to wait). She also gave me the contact number of someone who will help with the humane traps so this ends our kitten experience.
We’re thinking of keeping Frank, the seal point. Are three cats in an 1850sf home, with a preschooler and a baby on the way, too many?
I was all set to say you were making a mistake…
…but only because IMO you were picking the wrong kitten ;). My druthers would be towards Slinky or Intrepid, but I’m going on all of a couple sentences of descriptions and a few pictures and I’m not you and what the hell do I know, anyway :p?
Cats are, all things considered, not too much work as pets go, at least in small enough numbers. Three is probably more than I would have in my little place, but still a semi-reasonable number in general ( my crazy cat-lady wariness starts upwards of that ). In a place that size, with two adults, I think it would be just fine.The only issue would be an territorial/dominance problems if your other cats are edgy types. But if they socialize with each other they’ll probably accept a third and kittens are generally much easier to ease into households with pre-existing adult cats.
They are quite convinced that you’re trying to drown them, instead just trying to drown their fleas. And yes, they are very pathetic during and after their baths. But they are even more adorable and cuddly when they’re squeaky clean.
Somebody elsewhere on this board (I think it was here?) posted a good idea; the number of pets, in this case cats, must not exceed the number of hands that the humans in the household possess. In my case, that would be two, since I live alone. I don’t have enough space for two anyway, but I could easily see having two cats if I had the room and the money for vet bills. Two adults means a maximum of four.
If you can afford them and have the room I don’t see three being a problem. I grew up with cats from the time I was six months old (sniffle Sebastian was a good cat! He never came home one night when I was about seven. I choose to believe he was picked up by a family and lived a long happy life. Other kitties followed, but he and I were the same age.). I’m assuming I learned pretty young to respect kitty claws and teeth, but it must not have been too traumatic, because I adore cats.
I have a major weakness for Siamese-type kitties, though my current owner is a blue point. Frank is a cutiepie.
I want one!
Posting them to London would be bad, right?
That whole “black cats being tortured around Halloween” urban legend really bums me out. I think black cats are far more affected by rescue workers refusing to take them in or adopt them out (effectively creating and publicizing the stories and perpetuating the myth cycle), then actually by being treated disproportionately badly around Halloween.
Solid black animals in general have a harder time getting adopted, it’s too bad that a bunch of them lose a whole month or more of adoption opportunities because some rescue worker is worried about “satanic cults”.
Not that this changes anything for FK, but just a thought… and he’s not even a “black cat”, he’s a penguin!
That’s me, actually! It is an excellent rule to have…that way if every single pet needs pettings at the same time it isn’t a problem.
It was here! Excellent. I liked it and decided it would be one of my household rules.
My wife and I took in 7 kittens and placed 6. The only one we have left is the only black cat in the litter.
The two kittens I had adopted last year were all black, except for a few nearly invisible tufts of white on their bellies. The friend who found them had speculated that they might have been abandoned because of their color, as there are some people who are superstitious about owning all-black cats. I had gotten them in May, though, so even if I had decided not to keep them (the phrase “snowball’s chance in hell” comes to mind) this probably wouldn’t have been an issue.
Besides, they look so cute curled up together with my old Tuxedo cat.