The vet says as long as the kittens are still alert, which they definitely are, they are still alright.
The vet also said it is also better to use a bottle compared with a syringe, to handfeed, so I’ve bought a bottle, poked a hole in the teat with a hot needle (about 0.02cm in diameter, not that I could accurately measure that!) and sterilised bottle and teat as I do with Jayden’s bottles. The pet store lady says the hole must be big enough and one way to test it is to suck the teat ourselves.
The last time I used a bottle was 17 years ago – handfeeding Cow Mau, Bunny and Pole. After that, I only used syringes because I felt there was better control.
The vet also said that the earliest we can deworm the kittens is at 2 weeks, so we have to wait until 24th February.
As for feeding, as long as the kitten is willing to suck, 3ml-4ml is fine each time. But if the kittens refuse, they should not be forced.
I have been cautioned in the past that overfeeding is very dangerous and can lead to diarrhoea and death. But a quick check on the internet says that it is impossible to overfeed kittens as their metabolic rate is so high but I guess that’s not true because other reliable websites still say not to overfeed for the reason mentioned above.
So, no overfeeding.
So here’s the bottle, sterilised, already poked a hole multiple times which I thought would be big enough.
The attempt with the bottle was a COMPLETE failure. Akira refused to suck from it and only bit the teat. Nothing came out. Rather than stress her out, I quickly reverted to the syringe again.
Now I remember why after Cow, Bunny and Pole, I never used the bottle again. Cow, Bunny and Pole are by far, on record, the EASIEST orphaned newborns I’ve ever looked after. That was the good thing as they were my first rescues. If that hadn’t been successful, I wouldn’t have had any confidence to rescue more, and might not even have started AnimalCare. It might have been a one-off rescue and that’s that.
Cow, Bunny and Pole were the inspiration behind AnimalCare and the REAL founders. Me? I just did the paperwork, that’s all.
Akira – no weight increase from 6.30pm yesterday until 6.00am this morning, but as feisty and noisy as ever. Her weight has now increased…after I syringe-fed her. And she was hungry too.
The vet said kittens’ weight will wax and wane, but the continuous drop is not good. So, the monitoring goes on. The vet also said that an average increase of 10g per day would be good enough. Kai did not achieve this in the last 24 hours.
This is Akira and Kai. Indra is at the back.