A bucket of kittens

A few weeks ago we offered to foster a litter of five newborn kittens. The animal shelter worker who was caring for them also had several other dependent animals in her care and was feeling overwhelmed. My daughter Catherine had the time and ability and desire to help, so she took the kitties.

For the first few days all seemed to be going well. Catherine loved the kittens and took great pleasure in feeding them, helping them to eliminate and keeping them warm and dry. She successfully transferred them from syringe feeding to bottle feeding. They were so cute, their little round ears twitching as they suckled at the bottle.

But then one of the smaller kittens began to fail. We had trouble feeding him and he cried piteously - this heartbreaking descending wail. His little face was bony, not round and cute. I took him to our vet, who thought he could still make it, and told me to continue to care for him. But he warned me, things could change very quickly. That night the kitty died as I held him in my hands.

By this time the other kittens were experiencing trouble too. They were constantly wet and dirty with feces. It was nearly impossible to keep them clean and dry and warm. One by one they stopped nursing at the bottle. We fed them with syringes, but they did not thrive, they grew weaker, frailer. Within a few days, all the kitties had died.

We were devastated, traumatized. Our little babies suffered and died. Why?

A little backstory: these tiny, fragile, babies were found inside a plastic bucket at the edge of a lake. Who knows how long they had lain in that bucket in the sun? Had somebody planned to drown them in the lake? Lost their nerve or been interrupted? What happened to the mother cat? Is she still alive? Pregnant again? We don't know. But we feel pretty certain that these kittens were treated with hideous disdain for their little lives.

What we've learned. We managed the care of the kittens poorly. People have said, You did your best, you don't need to feel guilty. But we made some very serious mistakes, and those kittens suffered for it. And yes, we do feel guilty, we feel responsible. Here is what we now know, maybe it will help someone in the future.

We already knew about kitten formula and feeding with syringes and bottles. We knew that very young kittens need to be stimulated to eliminate urine and feces (gently wash their genitals with a warm damp cloth). We knew kittens needed to be kept warm, clean and dry.
We had already raised one newborn kitten, and he thrived. But raising one kitten is not the same as raising more than one. Tommy, our bottle kitten, was easy to keep dry and warm.

How to care for motherless newborn kittens

Many, many thanks to my friends at the Ask the Vet Techs and Cat Lovers Group at Care2.com. From these wonderful people I learned so much about handraising orphaned kittens, unfortunately I learned too late to save my babies.

Keep the kittens separate from one another. This is counter-intuitive, but very important to understand. Our motherless kittens were always wet and dirty, which kept them cold - it took us way too long to figure out they were peeing and pooping on each other. We didn't understand how this was happening: if kittens need stimulation to eliminate waste, how were these kittens managing to pee and poop on each other constantly? Kittens, like all mammal babies, have a strong instinct to suckle, and will spend much time suckling on their mother. Motherless kittens who are kept together will suckle on each other - generally on each other's genitals which are nipple-like to the touch. When they suckle on each other's genitals they stimulate elimination, which means they end up peeing and pooping on each other. The kittens will get wet and dirty, then they will get cold. When they get cold, their systems begin to shut down, they lose their energy and strength, they will not suckle properly, they will not digest food properly.
So: Wrap each kitten in a warmed piece of flannel or fleece, tuck it into a small box. Put all the small boxes in a larger box (a styrofoam cooler or other insulated box if you have one). Tuck blankets or towels or quilt batting in between all the small boxes. Loosely cover the big box with a towel or light blanket.

2. Keep the kittens warm. We kept our kittens together, thinking they would keep each other warm. BUT a newborn kitten does not have the ability to keep itself warm, therefore newborn kittens cannot keep each other warm. (And as stated above, if kept together, they will suckle on each other, and make each other wet from urine & feces, which will make them cold.) They depend entirely on external sources to keep warm: a mother cat, a light bulb, a heating pad, a very warm room (90 degrees).

Put the big box with the small individual boxes in a small room - a laundry room, bathroom or closet, and keep that room heated to 90 degrees with a space heater. Or position a desk lamp with a 25 watt bulb over the box. For temporary heat you can also use socks filled with raw rice and heated in the dryer or microwave, and tucked between the boxes. (You can also buy pet beds that contain heating pads.)

3. Feed the kittens a commercial kitten formula like KMR. This is available at most pet stores, Wal-mart or your local veterinary clinic. Dilute the formula by adding about 1/3 water to 2/3 formula. You don't want the formula to be so dense that it causes diarrhea, or so weak that the kittens aren't getting nutrition. You may have to adjust the dilution over a few days until the kittens are eliminating properly. Add a drop of corn syrup or molasses to the formula in the bottle and shake it up. This will help keep the baby from getting constipated. Feed with either a syringe (ask your veterinarian for a couple, usually free) or a baby bottle for pets (available at same place you buy formula). You have to make your own hole in the nipple - this is the most difficult thing to do. Too small and the kitten has to work too hard to get a small amount of food. Too large, and the kitten will choke on the fast flow. Buy a few extra nipples if you can, to experiment. Then you have to practice patience and perseverance as the kitten learns to suckle from the bottle. Once the kitten figures it out, feeding is easy. A healthy kitten will stop eating when it is full - you can tell the kitten has enough formula if it drops off the bottle, its mouth relaxed and almost smiling, it's tummy round and full, and its body relaxed. The kitten will look drunk and happy.
An unhealthy kitten will struggle at the bottle and may never seem to get enough. If necessary, go back to feeding with a syringe. This takes practice!
Feed healthy kittens about every four hours. Weak kittens may need to be fed every two hours.


4. Help the kittens to eliminate waste. After the kitten has eaten enough you must wash its genital area with a warm damp cloth or cotton ball. The kitten will pee and poop. Healthy poop will be soft and mustard yellow. Tiny kittens may experience diarrhea or blood in their stool due to the formula not being perfect like mother's milk. (Occasional diarrhea or blood is not a cause for concern. If the kitten has constant diarrhea or bloody stool, take it to you veterinarian.) Clean and dry the kitten and wrap it up in a warmed piece of flannel and deposit it back into it's little box. If you have extra help, have someone else warm up some flannels in the clothes dryer, so you have them ready as each kitten is done eating.

5. Weigh the kittens. Determine your own schedule, but weigh the kittens at a consistent point at each feeding - either before or after you feed them. Use a small kitchen scale.
Keep a record for each kitten, at least for the first couple of weeks until you know they are thriving. Kittens should gain weight rapidly, and may show weight gain at each feeding. A kitten who is losing weight is in dire trouble.

6. Troubleshooting. Consult your veterinarian for constant diarrhea or bloody stool. If an otherwise healthy kitten is struggling with a bottle, check the size of the hole in the nipple - try different nipples. Eye infections are common in kittens. Gently wipe the the kitten's eyes with cotton balls dipped in saline solution or boric acid solution (in the pharmacy with contact lens solutions). You can also buy eye ointment from your veterinarian.

7. Love. Snuggle the kitten and stroke it gently (as it's mother would lick it). I tucked Tommy inside my bra and carried him around next to my chest. Tommy craved affection, as I'm sure our little motherless litter of kittens would have if we had been able to get past desperately trying to feed and warm them. Tactile stimulation is important, touch, hold, pet, nuzzle.

This is just the basics. For more information:
Raising Orphan Kittens
Orphaned Kittens
Hand raising the orphaned kitten

There are a lot of other websites - just key word "orphaned kittens".
And a book: Hand-raising the orphaned kitten, by Myrna L. Papurt, DVM

To finish up - I think most or all of our kittens would have survived if we had kept them separated from each other - they would have stayed warm and dry and would have eaten better as a result. I can't tell you how awful we feel about this.