The Zev thread (was "Anybody want a kitten?")

[TimO]

She hasn't really got any access to anything that dusty, and if she did, she would have investigated all the dust and whatnot already, and cleared it out!

It's really the lack of eating that's worrying me.  If she's still not eating tomorrow morning, I'll give the vet a ring and see what he thinks.

She seems to have plenty of energy if I play with her, but I can see on the webcam that once I leave the room, she just lies down, and doesn't do much, which is unlike her.  From the thudding of paws next door, she seems to have unlimited energy, even if I'm not in there.

[TimO]

At Feline's suggestion to give her some Tuna (which I don't have), I gave her half a can of Encore Sardine and Tuna adult cat food.  I very briefly microwaved it, to accentuate the smell, and she wolfed half of it down immediately.

The food I had put down for her, Halls kitten food, and Sainsburys kitten food, does look more than a bit artificial, whereas the Encore, just looks like bits of fish (admittedly cooked fish).  If I liked fish, I'd probably be able to eat it, their chicken cat food just looks and smells like cooked chicken.

I can hear her running around like a mad thing upstairs now.

I think I'm suffering from excessively worrying new parents syndrome.

I'll definitely mention the sneezing to the vet on Wednesday though.

[Kim]

I think I'm suffering from excessively worrying new parents syndrome.

Know the feeling.  It comes after all the proud poo conversations.

I'll definitely mention the sneezing to the vet on Wednesday though.

*nods*


Glad she's eating.

[TimO]

Overall she ate almost a whole can of cat food, and a smallish saucer of cat milk yesterday, which isn't a patch on what she ate previously.

I heated up some more smelly fish cat food (more of Talisker's old supply of Encore, most of the kitten food isn't that strong smelling, or fish flavoured), and also some milk.

She's had a little of both, although barely enough of the milk to notice.  Clearly she either hasn't got an appetite, or it doesn't smell right.  Previously she was glugging the milk down, almost an entire bottle in one day!

From an energy point of view, she still has plenty, she'll bounce around like a mad thing if you play with her, and is doing some stuff even when I'm not in the room. She's also using her litter tray, so there's clearly stuff going through her, but not as much as before.

I think she should be OK for a while, as long as she's not torpid and lethargic, I think she's OK, and I'll be seeing the vet tomorrow morning, so I'll ask him when I should start worrying, and need to ring them up.

[TimO]

... and she's found out how to get under the bed.  This was inevitable really, it was only old pillows and cushions stuff around the periphery which was blocking her.  Now she's worked it out, there's no point in blocking her again, since she'll just pull another pillow or cushion out until there's a kitten sized hole.

It took me five minutes of swearing to pull the bed away from the wall.  Mental note, never buy another cheap double bed from Argos, they're really heavy!

She can't really get away from me now, not that she really could anyway, the shoelace of doom will always attract her out!

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

Maybe she's stopped eating as much because she's caught up with what she missed and now she can eat at normal levels.

[Biggsy]

Just in case you were tempted to stop adding to the ongoing saga of Zev and Kai, can I just mention how entertaining and interesting these heart-warming tales and pictures are, even for (or is that especially for?) those of us who don't have cats!

+1.  Those of us who used to have cats are the saddest of all!

[barakta]

Yeah, I agree with Kirst.  I was surprised by how much she was eating at yours TimO as she was eating approx 1 + 1/3 to 1+ 1/2 pouches a day + milk for the 4 days or so before leaving ours and leaving a few chunks behind. 

She may have gone into "new place == starvation mode" at TimO's initially and the eating less is a settling down as much as anything else.  Kittens managing their own food intake is as I understand it a GoodthingTM but yeah I'd be interested to hear the vets view after tomorrow.

I also love these updates, makes missing her a little less hard 

[TimO]

Possibly she was doing that, and probably she didn't eat much when she was first moved, because she was so nervous, and just hiding in the cat carrier, so when she did come out, she had some catching up to do.

As you say, I'll ask the vet on the morrow.

Here's a rare shot of her being in the view of the webcam.  I still haven't automated stuff, I've got too much work to catch up with, and I need to sort out the Public keys, and whatnot, which I don't do frequently enough to remember how to do it.  It's also between an OpenSSH client, and a quite old ssh.com server, just to make life a bit more interesting!

[TimO]

Eventually she did eat most of the cat food, although it would have cooled down by then, so the smell would have been minimal.  This evening, she just ate most of another half a can of fishy cat food, and had some more milk, whilst watched over by her human servant:

I warmed up the food and milk again, but she scoffed them down fast enough, that I don't think she's got any problem today.   I haven't seen her sneeze today either, so maybe she was just briefly a little off colour yesterday.

She's as active as ever, and even though she retired under the bed now, instead of into the carrier, the shoelace of doom works as well as ever, and she'll soon ricochet out!  Her litter is pretty much clean of anything solid today, but she's eaten quite a lot in the last few hours, so I'm sure it'll be along shortly!

[TimO]

I just went up and used the shoelace of doom to grab her, and plonk her in front of her milk, so she promptly decided to eat the cat food instead!  She's eaten pretty much all of that now, so that 1½ cans of cat food today, which is approaching half of what Kai's eaten, which is pretty impressive for a cat nowhere near to half of his weight and volume.

She's not overly interested in the milk though, which is a little odd, because when she was first here, she was drinking that preferentially to eating any meat.

I'm feeling much happier about her appetite today.

[Mrs Pingu]

Cats aren't really built to drink milk (except nursing kittens of course) so I wouldn't be too upset about her not being interested in the shmilk. We tried it with ours when it first came out and they weren't interested. YCMMV.

[TimO]

Cats aren't really built to drink milk (except nursing kittens of course) so I wouldn't be too upset about her not being interested in the shmilk. We tried it with ours when it first came out and they weren't interested. YCMMV.

This is cat milk, so it'll be OK with her system.  At her age, she could still be getting milk from Mum, although she is happy with solid food, and two days ago, she couldn't get enough of the milk.  She has drunk all I put own for her now, so I'm guessing that kittens aren't that different from human children, and change their mind as often as the weather changes.  Today they like it, tomorrow maybe not.

[TimO]

She's obviously getting used to me.  Today she didn't immediately run for cover when I came into the room. but actually stood up and walked over to me, to be petted briefly.

I got her food, and warmed it slightly, and she started scoffing it right down.  She even positioned herself, so that she could swap between the meat and milk every minute or so!

She didn't finish it all, but I didn't expect her to, and she made a significant impact upon both.  She did sneeze once, but that could have just been a random sneeze.  I'll still mention the sneezing to the vet later.

[TimO]

That was relatively painless.

She's healthy, the vet couldn't find any problems with her, and he went over her very thoroughly.  He reckons she's actually closer to 3 months old (he did look very carefully at her teeth), than the 9 weeks that Kim's vet estimated, which presumably made her even smaller for her age!

She weighs about 1.1kg now, so not that far off twice the weight that she was when Kim and barakta caught her.

She had her first vaccination jab, she'll go back in three weeks or so to have the second one, and will need to go back in 2-3 months(ish) to be spayed, and probably chipped at the same time (as Kai was).

We don't need to deal with fleas, since Kai has been treated (and will continue to be), and she won't be going outside until after she's been spayed and chipped, and fully vaccinated.

I do have a tube of worming past, which I'll give her over the next three days.  I'm leaving off doing it until tomorrow, since I think she's had enough trauma for today.

[peliroja]

Keep the updates coming, Tim!

[barakta]

Delighted to hear she's starting to approach you on her own, she did that to Kim much sooner than me and was only really approaching me rather than me approaching her to stroke her when sleepy the last few days or so.

Very glad to hear your vet decided she was healthy, interesting about the age thing cos that means she was and still is TINY for her age and that it really was then or never on the day we rescued her   

We found she was happy to eat antibiotics in food but skewed it so she was 1) hungry and 2) had a small portion in antibiotics meals so she would definitely eat all the stuff.  Hopefully it'll be easy to get stuff into her!

Yay for the updates.

[Kim]

That's an immense relief.   

1.1kg 


I got the impression that my vet wasn't all that interested in determining her exact age, beyond "old enough for solid food", presumably as it didn't affect treatment.  She wasn't exactly in a state for a thorough teeth inspection at the time anyway (though she let me have a decent look while playing a few days later, and certainly appeared to have a full set), so I think he was basing that mostly on weight.

Glad she's coming to greet you as you enter the room, that's a really good sign.

[TimO]

Bugger, I just remembered, that I forgot to ask the vet about her paw.  It's probably OK though, when I looked at it yesterday, it didn't look that dissimilar to the other paw, so it's probably healing fine.

[andrewc]

And Yay for Kim & barakta's Kitty Rescue & Rehoming Service 

And another one for Tim's Free Feline Flophouse 

[TimO]

Well TimO's Feline Flophouse has just taken delivery of 72 cans of Kitten food (in five different flavours), at an average price of 75p a can.

Actually, the two flavours of Animonda Carny Kitten are 200g tins vs the others which are 70g and 85g tins, so offer better value for money, since at her present rate of consumption, they'd each last over two days.  If you equate the larger cans to three of the smaller ones (not quite, but close enough), then that's an average price of 45p each, which isn't quite so bad.

So, she's got:

• Animonda Carny Kitten - Chicken and Rabbit
• Animonda Carny Kitten - Beef and Turkey Heart
• Applaws Kitten - Chicken Breast
• Almo Nature Kitten - Chicken and Tuna
• Schesir Kitten - Tuna with Aloe

I'm not quite sure what Aloe is in this context, I'm guessing it's some form of plant, but quite what that's doing in cat food I'm not sure.

That nominal 120 cans will probably last her somewhere between 2 and 2½ months.

[border-rider]

Aloe's a succulent plant, as in Aloe Vera.  dunno why it'd be in cat food either.

[TimO]

Aloe's a succulent plant, as in Aloe Vera.  dunno why it'd be in cat food either.

According to Wikipedia, it's a genus of about 400 species of plant.  That doesn't help regarding cat food however!

A quick Google suggests that Aloe Vera may have some effect on FeLV, but that was via injection, not ingestion.  Otherwise it looks like Aloe Vera can produce loose stools, so possibly it's in there to make sure the cat's regular?

Since it's a German product, possibly there's some mistranslation or colloquialism involved.

[Kim]

Or it's designed to appeal to hippy cat owners? 

Tuna == dolphin-killing evil
Aloe == herbs

So they cancel out?   

[TimO]

For a can of cat food, it does have quite posh packaging, and it's got a rainbow on it, so it could be all tree huggy.