VOLUME 3, ISSUE 1

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(Continued from page 2)

After bottle feeding, the kittens need to be burped because they can swallow a lot more formula (and air) in a shorter time than if they were leisurely nursing. To do this, gently tap the kitten just behind the shoulder blades with your index and middle finger until you hear the sound of relief.

Now to the tricky part. At least it was for me. Potty time. I began their elimination time as just before feeding. I changed it to both before and after feeding as they seemed to have something to eliminate at both those times.

Now number one is easy. Just touch the faucet - instant dribbles which in a week was a stream and in another week a geyser - so watch out. Number two was a problem. First of all they should go minimum once a day, or even twice or more. Second of all, number two takes more stimulation. I tried everything. Rubbing, stroking, circling. Using a finger wrapped in a warm, wet washcloth to simulate the mother's tongue. Not much luck.

For these kittens, what seemed to work was continued stimulation of number one area NOT number two area! So there you go. Mark the "amount" of number two in your column across from the right time: it'll be quarter of an inch, half an inch, one inch, etc. in no time.

You'll soon be able to mark more fun things on your spreadsheet: The day the umbilical stumps fall off, the day they genuinely purr (they make a clicking sound almost from the start), the day the eyes open (one kitten's eyes opened in six hours, the other took a day and a half), the day they go number one by themselves, the day they go number two by themselves, the day they eat food by themselves, the day they jump out of the box . . .

You also get to enjoy the small but remarkable changes. When did they "grow" ears? When did they start to scramble around a bit on unsteady legs? When did their tails become less stubby? When did they start to be awake more than asleep?

At three weeks, you simultaneously get to try to get them to do two things - go potty by themselves and start to lap formula and soft food off a plate.

This is where the wonders of instinct take over. At exactly three weeks of age, I put them in the litter box. Immediately they started sniffing the litter (NON-clumping, of course until they are ten weeks old as they might try to eat it before that.) Not a day later, they dug at it and "postured" over the little depression they'd created. By three and a half weeks, they were both "litter-box trained."

Lapping at a dish was a little harder for them, but then who wouldn't prefer to be held and bottle-fed? Just position them over the dish, dip your finger in the dish and bring the mixture to their mouths over and over again. Yes, things will get messy. They will "dive" in the dish, step in their gruel, and end up with more food on their faces and coats than in their mouths.

But soon, at about five weeks with these kittens, they refused to "nurse" any more. They finally preferred to eat and drink out of a dish. Or so I thought.

One evening, while the kittens were on my lap (I was busy socializing them, of course), a maternally-minded foster jumped up and immediately "encouraged" them to nurse on her - despite the fact she had been spayed weeks earlier. They were only too glad to comply, kneading and purring away, eyes closed in bliss.

She was just as bliss-filled at being a mom again, so I thought what harm could it do? This went on for several days. I finally noticed how slurpy things were sounding and realized this foster mom was loaded with milk! These kittens

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