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

[Gattopardo]

The step liked aspic jelly....we would share pork pies especially the cheap ones as I'd eat the meat and pastry and the cat would eat the jelly.

Might be worth a try with natural yoghurt, step cat loved that and we would share a pot getting her to lick the stuff off my fingers.

[barakta]

Heh, yes she liked that.  I find she starts it by indicating a tummy rub and then goes for you so if you ever want to avoid that go back to her head and neck...

I could hear the purr and she's quite good with claws and teeth - if she got too enthusiastic I used to do the mummy-cat press lightly on the top of her nose as a "tone it down" signal which she always responded well to.

[TimO]

I have to be so careful petting her.  With an adult cat, they tend to lean against your hand when you smooth them, but she obviously hasn't learnt that yet, and is so light and frail, that even with the lightest hand, she tends to sway a bit under the slight pressure!

[barakta]

Yeah! She would do a good line in skidding across our bathroom floor if I wasn't careful.  She's so enthusiastic it's a job to remember just how tiny she really is and she's got more bulk than she had originally.

[peliroja]

These two are such lucky kitties. It's lovely to see such a happy ending for them both. 

[Gattopardo]

Heh, yes she liked that.  I find she starts it by indicating a tummy rub and then goes for you so if you ever want to avoid that go back to her head and neck...

I could hear the purr and she's quite good with claws and teeth - if she got too enthusiastic I used to do the mummy-cat press lightly on the top of her nose as a "tone it down" signal which she always responded well to.

You are the cats mother

[Gattopardo]

If you need a cat annoyer, (when they are more settled) I can annoy the pair of them, steal cat biscuits drink the kitten milk etc

I sooooooo want a kitty kat, but know that I wander off for a few days....miss the step cat.   

[TimO]

She would do a good line in skidding across our bathroom floor if I wasn't careful. ...

LOL, she can't do that on carpet, and Kai has the bathroom.  When I start to introduce them to one another, I'll swap them over between the two rooms, to let them pick up each others smell.  She'll have the potential to skid then!

I can't believe she was ever lighter, she's so tiny even now.  The cat I rescued from the Purley Way two years ago, was heavier and larger than her, and the vet estimated she was about six weeks old.  Either this one is going to go through a growth spurt, or I'm going to end up with two small cats (Kai is not a big cat).  I'm not sure how much malnutrition affects growth of kittens, and whether she can "catch up" if that's the case.

[TimO]

Oh, and I checked her left paw earlier.  Actually I checked both paws, so I could make a comparison!

It's obviously been injured, but it just looks a little redder than the other paw.  I haven't seen her limping, or in any way favouring either paw, so I'm guessing it's not causing her any problems.

When she sees the vet on Wednesday, I'll point it out, and get him to check it, but I don't foresee there being any problems with it.

[Cheysintow]

Anyone mentioned its got both eyes infected?

[TimO]

Anyone mentioned its got both eyes infected?

Based on what?

Kim was putting some treatment on her eyes:

... Gave me some antibiotic ointment for her eyes and some drops (thankfully not pills!) to put almost homeopathic quantities of in her food. ...

I haven't specifically looked at her eyes recently, but I hadn't noticed any problem with them.

[Biggsy]

Anyone mentioned its got both eyes infected?

They look ok to me:



Look at all the pictures, not just those on page 1.

[TimO]

I just went and looked carefully at her eyes, or as carefully as a physicist can!

The lenses look clear, there's no obvious cloudyness.  Both eyes look identical, the pupils are dilated a similar amount.

She hasn't made any sort of gestures to suggest that her eyes may be irritating her, and hasn't squinted or blinked excessively, indeed when I just looked at her, she opened her eyes up nice and wide, so I got a nice clear look at them.

She hasn't had any sort of discharge, or crustyness, in fact less than adult cats like Talisker used to have.  I'd occasionally clean the gunk out of his eyes, very carefully with a tissue, but I wouldn't want to try that with her, she's not as relaxed with me yet.  Luckily there's nothing there at the moment which needs cleaning, she must be doing a good job of cleaning herself.

There's no evidence of wateryness or weeping anywhere in the adjacent fur, and I haven't seen her third eyelid at all (the nictitating membrane), which is a good thing.

I can't really check he eyelids, I don't think she'd tolerate me fiddling with her eyes that close, and to be honest, my fingers are large enough it would be difficult to do safely.  I'll leave that degree of inspection to a vet, if necessary.

As far as I can see, her eyes are fine.  Since she did have an issue with them last week, I'll get the vet to inspect them closely, and print out the details of treatments that Kim has sent me, so he knows exactly what she's been treated with.

[Kim]

Anyone mentioned its got both eyes infected?

Her eye infection cleared up after about 4-5 days on antibiotics/drops, along with her respiratory symptoms.

TBH, most of the gunk visible in the early photos was as much a symptom of not grooming properly as anything else.  She only started washing her own face on day 3 or so, in response to some gentle encouragement from me.

Her eyes are clear in this, later, photo:



(The slight residue visible under her right eye is antibiotic ointment)

[TimO]

This is her eyes, as of about five minutes ago.  It's not the best shot, but she's in the cat carrier, which is a little dark, and I didn't want to use the flash, because it would have scared her, likely temporarily blinded her, and the reflections from her eyes would possibly have made it useless anyway.  Out of four shots, this was the one where both she and I moved the least, so it's the most in focus.



Things are far clearer when you actually look at her eyes, it's difficult to get a decent shot under those circumstances.

[TimO]

When having a brief Google for cat eye problems, I was little amused to find that the WebMD site has a pet's element, pets.wemmd.com.  It seems to contain some useful stuff, even if from a USA perspective (eg articles on declawing).

[Gattopardo]

So when is the web cam set up?  It will be like having a kitten trapped in my monitor.

Just don't let it see the mouse....

Lazer pointer more like.

[Gattopardo]

Anyone mentioned its got both eyes infected?

They look ok to me:



Look at all the pictures, not just those on page 1.

Note the matching eye colour and basket..........chamelion eye cat.

[TimO]

Note the matching eye colour and basket..........chamelion eye cat.

That's largely the effect of the flash on her eyes.  I believe that you don't get redeye with cats, but you get others colours, such as white, yellow, blue and green.  This is caused by the reflective layer in a cats eyes, which generally gives them better night sight than us, but probably poorer vision overall.  Her eyes don't look anything like that colour in daylight.

Reading up on spaying, at least one site says "... as long as she’s at least eight weeks of age and weighs at least eight pounds".  Which is a bit odd, because Talisker as a full grown adult male cat, barely weighed eight pounds.  If I have to wait for her to attain that weight before she can be spayed, it could take a long time, since she's currently small for her probable age.

[Kim]

Given the use of pounds, I'd assume that was an American site.  American cats tend to be *huge* (I'm not entirely sure why).

[TimO]

Well Maine Coons are a lot more common in the US than they are in the UK, and they're one of the biggest cat breeds, but I didn't think that in general a random US cat was any bigger than a UK one.  Maybe they take after their countries cliché’s and wear striped suits and eat too many McDonald's burgers.

[TimO]

OK, the webcam is set up, and grabbing images to the server OK (as far as I can see from a PC downstairs).  I'll have to do some work at the web server end, when I get to work, but if you're lucky there will be a view later on.

[border-rider]

They wanted to wait until 5 months for spaying ours, but in the end there was too much interest being shown in Daisy's undercarriage, and they were done at a little over 4 months.  They certainly weighed less than 8 lbs then  - probably 5 or 6 lbs.  They're 4-5  kg now; even Daisy (who is a small cat) was 4.2 kg last week.

[TimO]

I'm slightly worried about her today.  Watching on the webcam (and no, I haven't sorted this out for general access yet), she didn't appear at all, so I presume she spent the entire day (from about 10-30 to 16-30) in the cat carrier, which is where she tends to stay anyway, when she's sleeping.

Even though I'd left a programmed cat feeder to open at 1200 (which it did), and she already had some food, and a saucer of milk, she doesn't seem to have touched any of them significantly.

I was playing with her a while back, and she's as packed with beans as ever, so certainly not lacking energy, but didn't seem to be tempted by the food or milk.  When I dunked my fingers in the milk, she licked it off, and took a couple of laps of it from the saucer, but then lost interest.

I'm not sure I should be worried yet, since she's clearly still energetic, but it seems unusual for her not to eat, and given how small she is, the food ought to go through her quite fast (the litter tray has been used, but I don't know when, it's out of view of the camera).

Maybe now that she's up and doing stuff, and the noise in the house should keep her more active, she'll eat more.

She's sort of sneezed a couple of times, which is also a little worrying, since she's done that a few times previously.

She is booked into the vets first thing on Wednesday anyway, for a checkup, but given her size, and small capacity for food, I'm slightly worried that she could go downhill even faster than an adult cat.

[Kim]

 

She was snotting and sneezing a lot when we first got her, but that had petty much stopped other than the odd sneeze after sniffing around fresh cat litter or dusty corners, which I don't think counts for anything, and occasionally when she was disturbed from deep sleep. 

Not wanting to eat is worrying, though, if she's not just tired (she spent most of last Monday in floppy sleepy can't-really-be-arsed-to-eat-but-if-you-insist-oh-this-is-quite-nice-actually mode after getting lots of attention at the weekend, then was back in wanting-to-kill-things mode on Tuesday morning).