Can We Save The Kitten?

Those of you who follow me on Facebook know that when we went to get eggs from the chicken house last night we found one of the farm cats had three newborn kittens in one of the nesting boxes. We didn't get too close, but could see that she was cleaning her kittens and appeared to be taking care of them.

Things had changed by this morning when we went to the chicken house. One of the kittens was dead. We weren't sure if the mother cat had killed it or one of the roosters or what, so we decided to keep checking back every little bit and see how the other two were doing. After a little while we found that the kittens had been moved to the floor of the chicken house. The mother was not there with them, but we hoped that she would return soon. The next time we went out there was only one kitten. We couldn't find the other. The mother was also not there and it soon became clear she had abandoned them. We would eventually find that the missing kitten had died as well.  

But that still left one little gray kitten in the straw in the chicken house. We decided to try to save it ourselves since it was obvious the mother cat was not going to. It was not moving and at first we thought it was already dead, but after holding it to warm it up for awhile, it started moving!  We put it in a box in the house, wrapped it in a dishcloth, and filled a jar with warm water for it to lie next to to keep warm. I went out to the next town over from us, which has a small farm store, and bought some milk replacement and a dropper to try to feed it. It took a couple attempts, but we did get it to talke a few drops of the milk replacement. It's still very, very weak, but I'll try to feed it again in a little bit, and we'll see what happens. I think it's chances of survival are fairly small, but we'll do what we can. It's quite a learning experience for the Farm Kids and they are really hoping we can help the kitten pull through. 

I know you can't see him very well in these pictures, but with all he's been through, I'm trying not to traumatize him anymore by moving him around too much.

If you haven't already liked us on Facebook, come join us and I'll post updates on the little guys condition!

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