Some S.O.B. tossed out of his car sometime last night or early morning four kittens about 3 weeks old. They were lying in the road about 100 feet from my house this morning. All identical, all littermates, next to them lay an opened empty cardboard box with a scrap of fabric. Sometimes, I just want to scream.

Last night, in someway, the littlest kitten Slider got out of the bedroom overnight and out into the back porch. The porch is screened but the wood we used to frame it isn’t solid- it’s trellis so it gets cold. I heard a small kitten cry about 1:00 a.m. and thinking someone left yet another kitten on the porch, I found her lying on a bed of her own making. She had found a crack in the wood by the back bedroom door and dug out all the fiberglass and fashioned a nest! And some people think cats are stupid. She was lying in the nest and trembling. Her ears were like ice. I bundled her up in to my robe and cycled some towels in the dryer and we sat up all night while she warmed up. I didn’t even waste time taking her temp, I knew she was subnormal. This morning, she is better, she is hugging the small heater in there and only eating a bit. Seems like today none of the kittens are eating much of anything. I am trying so hard to keep these babies alive- but I know it hurts them to eat. Even the baby food has been discarded, so I don’t know how this is going to end. If anyone has any ideas of what I can try- please post them. This is what has been attempted so far

AD pureed down with chicken broth

mashed and cooked chicken livers

crushed dry food softened with broth

tuna juice

pureed adult food

baby food all flavors- ham chicken turkey gets some interest but not enough

fancy feast kitten

max kitten

science diet kitten (they hated this!)

goats milk always a winner but  not enough protein to sustain them long

Here is Hooty- as you can see her chin is clearing up quite a bit, the huge burns and blisters have taken off the outer layer of skin. She is with a good friend of mine being fostered, but after this morning’s phone call, it is clear she has stolen a few hearts in the house and may be in her forever home! That’s the hope!

Thank you again to those who donated- please send prayers that these fearless five make it through this process- the vet bill will just have to wait.

Thanks to my husband’s talented knowledge of building computers and my stepson Dennis who is an IT Wizard, I am back online. I am on Mike’s computer though- mine has been gifted to him and he can get it up and running and have the better computer. I don’t much care- I just want a computer that runs,

I took the five babies back to the vet yesterday because their mouths were turning into quite the mess. Even though they are young (just under 7 weeks old, we have them all on antibiotic and painkillers- so you know its bad because kittens this age rarely get prescribed painkillers.

The only thing they can eat is baby food- they seem to prefer ham over the chicken and turkey. I found them at Winco for $0.98 apiece which is cheaper than Wally World. They cry when they eat and it breaks my heart. I mix the food with meaty homemade broth to help them get it down better. Several of them can only chew on one side of the mouth, so there is a lot of head-tilting going on. Their gums are still shredding but the vet assures me that the antibiotic will take care of it in due time. Couldn’t be quick enough for me.

Mira had a name change, turned out the vet was wrong and Mira is a boy- so I call him Hooty. He is in love with a stuffed owl that I have and the name seems to fit him. He no longer leaks blood into the food bowl (his mouth was the worst of the littermates). So he is getting better. The other kittens tend to pick on him fiercely so he has been placed in foster care to recover. I believe that he will give as good as he gets when he starts feeling better and getting stronger.

We are chopping away on this sky-high vet bill even though someone once again made off with one of our donation boxes at the local grocery store. I wish they would just take the monies and leave the boxes- but I ordered two more and have permission to place it back into the store as soon as it arrives.

I will be posting photos of the kittens in a few minutes. They are beautiful tuxedo babies and they are warriors! They want to fight and they want to be here which I hope and pray will happen!

Three kittens ended up going to the vet. Turns out they got into something caustic and have burns on their tongues, back of the throat and roof of the mouth. The vet reminded me that when he examined Cassie, when he sniffed her- she smelled like DAWN soap as I had bathed her but also a strong chemical. Because of my ongoing cold, I couldn’t smell anything. He believes that whoever dumped the family also dumped some sort of chemical on the queen perhaps to hasten death? It worked because Cassie passed away this afternoon. And yes, I am digging yet another grave. 🙁

The kittens are on antibiotics because they all had fairly high fevers and I am assist feeding them 7 times a day. But it was not the calicivirus so the littermates are back together and Ben said they should be doing better in a few days. The hardest part of this is when they open their mouth- you can see this white tissue just laying on the sides of their mouth and I have to take a warm q-tip and roll it off and pull gently because according to the vet, this is the toxin solidifying. Vet bill down to $800.00 now thanks to those of you digging deep. I am doing all  I can on this end to solicit funds to get this paid off. My heart breaks for these babies who did not ask for all this abuse to happen to them.

One of the gunny sack babies is headed to the vet this morning as soon as they open. I noticed yesterday that she had blood on her mouth and when I went to check her, I found ulcers on her tongues. She is so young- 7 weeks old but I have isolated her because ulcers are the first signs of the calicivirus. When I went to feed her this morning, I also noticed her gums are shredding. I have never seen anything like this before so I want to get it checked out. I did look at the electrical cords in the bedroom because kittens love to chew things- but there are no frayed wires peeking out anywhere and no teeth marks.Poor little girl, she has been through it and now it looks like her challenges might have just begun.

This morning I laid to rest Sweet Tangie next to Taylor and all the rest. For a brief moment it looked like my fears of FIP and the vet’s suspicion wouldn’t pan out- she rebounded for a 24 hour period but then she slid quickly downhill and we put her to sleep. Her brothers show no sign of the disease and as the vet says it is the luck of the draw. I held her in her final moments and she died knowing she was loved even if she was only a small black kitten trying to find her foothold in this world. Now,  she will live on in another.

I am piggybacking on Mike’s computer right now. Mine melted three weeks ago. It has been a strange time not to have the computer. Mike is re-building mine in the hopes he can retrieve all that seems lost. At least he got my mail and files back so I could log into my blog and try to bring it up to date.

Hugh was nice enough to post on my behalf (thank you my friend) So  much has happened since I last logged in. Trista has been rehomed into a home with a girl with Down’s syndrome. It was the neatest thing when the family came to visit. Trista had never met the mom or the daughter before but the minute they came through the door, she leaped off my lap- dancing and barking and jumping on the girl in excitement. She knelt down and this “couch potato” dog jumped in her lap and began kissing her face! I was stunned but smiling and I knew that Trista had found her forever home. Turns out they had recently lost their poodle and they were looking for a replacement pet- they had contacted me about a kitten- but turned out they took Trista home and she is a very happy dog belonging to a very happy girl! It was amazing.

As I had Hugh mention, we lost Taylor and it was a big loss for both of us. So now our old timer kitties are Bentley 15 and Glory Bee 18. There are now five spots on our feline cemetery that have been claimed by some beautiful and wonderful felines: Chappy, Turner, Benson, Squirt and Taylor.

Two weeks ago, someone pounded on our front door. It was a group of extreme hikers. They had been training high in the Cascades and stumbled over a gunny sack that contained a queen and 5 kittens! The person (and I use that term loosely) that did this to this Russian Blue Mix and her family- I hope will have Karma visit them on a regular basis and make them completely miserable. He taped this family down into the bottom of the sack so they couldn’t move. There was so much hair loss from the cats trying to free themselves- and the queen Cassie had a 105.9 fever upon arriving! She was in the hospital for three days- she has a heart murmur- and she kept having reoccurring high temps. Several days, I was afraid she wasn’t going to make it. Her kittens were so starving when they arrived that they were fighting over the food and they were 3 weeks old! They wanted the canned food and they wanted it NOW! There were teeth and claws flying- no idea how long they had been in bondage. They are fine now- thank the Good Lord.  Cassie is getting spayed as I type- and I pray she makes it through the surgery but even with the murmur, she needs to be spayed.

Her five kittens have been added to the rest of the group bringing the kitten count here to 14. Last week a shelter took 3 and another rescue took 5. It was hard to feed and keep up with 20 kittens. We also lost two foster homes this year.

. Too many cats rescued recently needed to be sent to the Bridge. One 2 year old mack tabby- was so far into FeLV that her eyes just ran with yellow goo- it was built up into her third eyelid like a mucky pool of sewage. Her ears were yellow, her pads on her feet. She showed up at a trailer park and everyone was throwing water on her or trying to get her away from the other cats. So sad, and now she is at peace.

Our vet bill is right now at $1,115.32 so if you have any loose change running around in your pockets and you wish to share- please do. It is desperately needed- and I do mean desperately. Yes, I am begging here.

I need to go, but I thank you in advance-