I think the universe has designated us as an Official Cat Haven.
So--my Mom is home from the hospital again. We went out there last night to clean her house, make her dinner, and all that stuff that she can't really do anymore, because during her 3-week hospital stay this time around, my stepfather and uncle (who's staying out there right now) lived like a couple of pigs and basically dirtied everything in the house. I don't know HOW he's going to take care of himself when Mom is gone--apparently he can't even wash a single dish, as was evidenced by the fact that there were pots and pans with leftover CEREAL and old nasty milk. Couldn't be bothered to wash a bowl? WTF? Anyway, we took care of all of that for her last night, and we'll be going back periodically to keep doing it.
While we were there, my stepfather went out to the barn and came back carrying seven kittens--six big, fat, strong, grey tabby ones and one tiny, underfed, skin-and-bones little orange one. He found them in the loft--their barn cat had kittens up there, and nobody realized it until two days ago. Anyway, one of them is the tiniest "runt" we've ever seen--MUCH too small to compete with the big ones for milk. He's also unable to eat any solid food yet, the poor thing. However, he IS able to drink liquids from a shallow dish.
Guess who brought him home to feed him? *sigh*
Our female cat, Spot, has adopted him outright. She doesn't have any milk to feed him, but she's taking care of keeping him warm, clean, and safe, and she's also letting him suckle for comfort--maybe in a week or so she'll start making at least a little milk for him. We've had an oversized can of powdered KMR in the freezer for months, so we're doing the job of feeding him ourselves. He's taking it from a little saucer, and he just shakes and shivers from excitement every time we feed him--he's obviously been starving, the poor thing. He's so tiny and thin that his eyeballs look like they're popping out. He was less than half the size of his littermates; roughly the size of a two-week-old kitten, even though he's obviously much older than that, as he already has all of his teeth, he can climb and run, and his ears are pointy and wide open. Based on the size of the others, we're guessing that he's at least 4 weeks old.
When we have him fed up and properly healthy, we're going to find a home for him, so if anyone near West Virginia is interested in giving a good home to this sad little precious boy, just PM me.
Anyway--pictures of the poor little thing and Spot taking care of him. It amazes me that she's doing this--she's never been a Mama, but she seems to know exactly what to do anyway. She went crazy when she heard him crying in my arms as we came in the door, and she jumped right into the little basket we made for him. She's only left it long enough to eat and use the box--what a sweet girl she is.
(I tried to get my feet into that last one for perspective, but it didn't quite work the way I planned, lol)
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