Current mood:

happy

Babies!
So there are three of them. They're clearly not all from the same litter, although two of them likely are. The two younger are only a few days old, maybe 3-4 days - they've still got umbilical cords (the cords usually drop off by about a week old.) One of those is a little orange tiger-stripe. I'm pretty sure he's a boy (it's hard to tell when they're THIS little.) He's definitely the go-getter among them. He's the most active, crawling around the box and shouting when he's hungry or cold. The other younger one is white with little grey tipped ears. I'm hoping he's not actually Siamese, although if he is, there's at least a good possibility that elara6 may be interested in him. I'm not sure of gender on this one yet, so I'm referring to him as "he" until I figure out for sure. He's quieter, but is a good eater so far. I've had absolutely no problem getting him to eat from the syringe.

The older kitten is probably about 2 weeks old, as her eyes are beginning to open. She's a beautiful little brown classic tabby. I'm a little more worried about her. She's fighting eating from the syringe. We've gotten food down her, but so far, she's fighting us every step of the way. The two littler ones are more than happy to latch on to the syringe, once they determine that's where the food is. But she wants to fight it. I think I'm going to try her on a kitten bottle, and see if she does better with a soft nipple rather than the hard syringe tip.

For now, though, they're snuggled down in a New Egg box in roane's bathroom. This is a good place for them because it has a heater with a separate control, so we can easily keep that room much warmer than the rest of the house. After eating, they snuggled in and went back to sleep, which I'm pretty sure is a good sign.

Now we embark on life in 2-hour blocks. roane and I will feed them together at the 11pm feeding, then I'll be on my own for the 1 and 3am feedings. She'll get up in time to do the 5am and 7am feedings. Fortunately, she can take them into work on the days we both have to work, although we'll have to do a handoff at WCC on the nights she has class. If you work with me on Monday and Wednesday afternoons, you may see a box of tiny kittens change hands!