They’ve made it to four weeks

Carlo and Bunny celebrated their four-week birthdays on Friday.  They’re a couple of odd, wee kitty cats.  Bunny weighs 1 lb., 1 oz., has perfect litterbox habits, and is generally spotless.  She will not eat any solid food and only wants to drink from a bottle.  Carlo weighs 11.6 oz. (yes, he’s that much smaller, still), has a constant case of the runs, tries to use the litterbox but gets litter all over him, and will happily chow down on a big can of cat food, no bottle needed.  Bunny wants to play with toys and wrestle, but Carlo always seems to be about one week behind her, and all he’s done so far is to poke a plastic ball around on the floor, once.  He likes to snuggle with Missy Mae and nap.  In many ways he seems developmentally delayed, yet he’s hitting most of the proper growth milestones, and doing some things (like eating solid food) even earlier than expected.  His two big problems are his size/slow physical growth, and the fact that he’s never had a healthy digestive tract.  I wish I could figure out what to do about the digestive tract issue.  So far he’s had Albon (twice), Panacur, some other dewormer whose name slips my mind, and Benebac supplements, but he’s never had a single poop in his lifetime which could be called “formed”.  Even on solid food, he just produces drips, and he has a hard time in the litterbox because he leaves little poop puddles, steps in them, gets litter stuck to his feet, yada yada yada.  His fecal matter isn’t even the right colour, because it’s stayed a mustard colour on solid food, whereas Bunny’s changes to brown when I slip mushed up food into her bottle of formula.  His small size and diarrhea can be symptoms of a portosystemic shunt, although I don’t know if the symptoms usually manifest so early in life.  I’ll definitely be on the lookout for any more symptoms, like neurological problems.

Here are pictures of the birthday kittens:

carlo_4_week_portrait

bunny_reclines

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 04/22 at 05:07 AM

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  1. Such adorable little ones.  I will be sending little kitty prayers for both of them with a little extra one for Carlo.  The constant diarrhea does sound concerning.  I wonder if it is a type of absorption problem.  Hopefully this will correct itself with time.

    Posted by Coll  on  04/22  at  06:22 AM

  2. What a funny contrast--the pristine little princess and then poor little Carlo, who has food (or something...) on his paws and looks a bit at a loss. Regardless, they’re both adorable. Sending good thoughts that Carlo’s digestive troubles clear up!

    Posted by Helena  on  04/22  at  09:21 AM

  3. So cute and such a change in just 4 short weeks!  I hope they both get healthy.  Once, we had to feed a kitten with bowel problems pure canned pumpkin.

    Posted by Ruth  on  04/22  at  04:54 PM

  4. Helena, I’m pretty sure that Carlo’s paws have “or something” on them, and not food smile I keep reading up on portosystemic liver shunts and I can really see that as being Carlo’s problem.  If it is, it’s not necessarily life-threatening, but would need to be surgically corrected.  I keep hoping he may just grow out of his problem in the next couple of months.

    Posted by Leigh-Ann  on  04/23  at  01:00 AM

  5. I’m so sorry about Carlo’s continuing issues. I’ve continued to worry ever since I had my suspicions about the liver shunt.
    He is just the cutest thing. That face…
    *tears*

    Posted by SemaviLady  on  04/23  at  10:21 PM

  6. AW!  So cute.  So fragile.  I’ll keep my fingers crossed for Carlos and his sad pooping issues.  Bunny definitely looks a bit Siamese.  Same colour paw pads as Yoshi.

    Posted by Von Krankipantzen  on  04/24  at  07:48 PM

  7. i am also just be a recent foster mummy to 2 two-week old kittens… i had difficulty feeding them using bottles so i am using syringe to feed them.

    my blog has more of their detail:

    http://jenniferyq.blogspot.com/

    Posted by jennifer  on  04/25  at  11:29 PM

  8. Hi Jennifer—it sounds as if you’re doing a great job feeding the kittens.  It’s hard to start feeding them from a bottle when they’re used to feeding from their mother, so the transition to the bottle can take a long time. 

    Also, have you contacted the other cat bloggers in Singapore for advice/suggestions?  They may be available to help you.  Check out both
    http://myanimalfamily.blogspot.com/
    http://tippedearclan.wordpress.com/

    They can perhaps direct you to resources so you won’t have to just send the kittens back to the warehouse after they eat solid food.

    Good luck, and have fun!

    Posted by Leigh-Ann  on  04/26  at  12:02 AM
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