It’s been a rough night. Momma Cat doesn’t eat, doesn’t drink and doesn’t use her litter box. She clings to her kittens with all her might.
We put a bowl of dry food, of wet food, and of tuna fish in her playpen. And a camera for good measure, to track her whereabouts! I tried to feed her by hand but she wouldn’t touch the food. She’s the complete opposite of aggressive. Last night before we went to bed, she looked so so sad it broke my heart.
We gave her privacy by not going into her room for about 12 hours, from midnight until noon. I checked the camera feed several times, and she didn’t move an inch, except around 5 am when she came to sniff, not the food, but the camera! But she didn’t even go close to the food bowls.
This morning we go into crisis mode. We have to save her, make her eat or she’ll stop producing milk and then the kittens won’t make it either.
I went to Petco to buy high calorie food but you need a vet prescription. The manager suggested kitten milk at a higher concentration.
I tried to feed her with the kitten syringe and a kitten size nipple we have available. And she drank the milk, without a fight. Yipee!!! But she ate the nipple too, chewed it up, and the last thing she needs is to have to poop little pieces of plastic! We bought a much bigger syringe at Walgreens and tried to feed her again.
Here’s the progress.
Step one: feeding milk through a syringe.
Step two: feeding wet food on a spoon.
Step three: feeding her directly from the bowl. You can see the whole set up of the playpen in the room, and the cardboard “home” where she stays with her babies.
She still won’t walk to the bowl, but that’s immense progress. We are thrilled. She makes a mess on the towel but that is not a problem now. As long as she eats, she can soil the towel, I don’t care! She even let me clean up her wound under her tail.
She will surviiiiii-iiii-iiii-ve!
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