I've found a couple kittens. They were in a tree at our farm during a huge storm. They were screaming and really high up in that tree, amazing they didn't fall out. Were cold, wet, and shivery. Got them warmed up on a heating pad and dried out, perked right up.

Does anyone have experience with raising these little guys? I'm not sure how old they are, eyes are fully open, ears are up, maybe not all the way? No teeth that I can see. One was sitting up, but they mostly toddle around on their bellies. They hiss at me when I come up to them.

Any advice? I have milk replacer and am working on getting them drinking out of a bottle. Is every 4 hours okay/not enough/too much? I know about the peeing thing with the towel. There seem to be different schools of thought, from using a litter pan and eating from a dish as early as 3 weeks, or as late as 7 weeks. Also have them seperated from my two JIC of disease/etc.

Working on getting a pic if my phone will send it like I told it to... Thanks!

Feed them as often as they'll take it, but be careful not to overfeed them. For your own convenience, getting them trained to a dish/plate as soon as possible-it doesn't hurt them to quit nursing from a bottle.

At a guess, they sound 2-3 weeks old at least, possible more if they got up into the tree on their own! They should be fine. And I would take them to the vet, get them some vaccinations, checked for mites, etc.
(hope you can get the pics to work--yay, bebe kitteh!)

Oh good for you. When I was really young, we rescued a paper grocery bag of newborn kittens from underneath a car...right behind the tires.

I wish I could take one or more of your kitties.

Thanks! I'll put a dish in there with some formula for them. Pretty sure momma took them up the tree, don't know why she would have left the barn for a tree in the hail storm, but who knows? If I can get them through Sunday, I'll take them to the vet Monday if they're available. Our barn cats don't have the best track record, poor kids. If my stupid phone would email the pic to me, I'd post it ;)

Not really having an awful lot of luck with the bottle feeding. They are very active, but don't seem to have much of a suckle reflex. Any tips?

sometimes an eyedropper works better... they do generally catch on to drinking from a dish pretty quickly, though

my wife wants a new kitten. wanna FedEx me one?

Four newborn kittens were once dumped on me. I already had four adult cats, so it was pretty interesting. One of my cats decided that the kittens were hers and started sleeping with them and bathing them. I won't repeat the other advice, but if you have two bathtubs (or one tub and one shower), recommend keeping them in there. They can't get out of the tub, and the tub is super easy to clean. Also, keep an eye on their health. Two of the kittens I was caring for got coccidia and died in their sleep. I was giving them medication for it and everything. Also, go to your local humane society or vet hospital, they will likely hook you up with supplies and advice. And, if you feel like you're getting in over your head, take the kittens to the vet or the humane society. They can give them the physical care that they need.

Also, since you have them, you might as well put them to good use. Put them in a box, find a depressed person, and dump the kittens on their chest. Nobody can be sad with kittens mewing on their chest!

When it comes to abandoned kittens just say no. If you invite one in they will tell the others on the outside and soon you'll find another little bundle on your back porch covered in mats, and dirt, and looking at you pathetically with its lil blue/hazel eyes and demanding you feed it.


Despite their obvious cuteness they are pure evil.


Also, I demand pictures.

You could always donate them to your local hospital ;)

<a href='http://www.plime.com/redir.p?http://youtube.com/watch?v=5Kig-0psII0' class='plime' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'><b>flash video</b></a>

dexhol- I'm sure being in the horse business you have a couple injection syringes lying around. You could try to use one of them to feed them, instead of using a bottle or eye dropper. Just syringe the formula into their mouth.

Good luck! I hope they make it and fair well.

Do you know which cat at the farm is the mother? You could always try to find out where she hides out (ie barn loft) and maybe take them back and then watch and see if their crying draws her back to them.

Problem with getting them back to the mom is we have a feral cat population that we really don't want. We use humane traps to catch the ones we can, spay/neuter and release, but certain ones are just too smart to trap. Adding these little guys back to the population just guarantees that they'll vanish and become three more unfixed critters that we may or may not be able to catch...

They're loud little guys, and seem pretty spunky. I'll take them to my vet after work tomorrow and see what they say.

We have the same problem. Only the ferals hang out at the neighbors down the road, so he feeds them, we trap them, then take them and have the vaccinated and spayed/neutered. They end up becoming very friendly to humans and hang out mostly in the barn where the food is.

It's good you are taking them to the vet. It's just hard raising kittens and puppies that young. If they can make it the next few weeks, I'm sure they will be fine. :)

Be very careful with injecting food into their mouths. A friend tried this method, and ended up getting the tube into the lungs instead of the stomach. EOS.

I'd love to advise you but without a pic to get an idea of how old the kitteh is it's impossible to go beyond the basics that everyone else has mentioned. Sounds like you have a good handle on it. And solids as soon as they want them but don't stop the KMR until about 6 weeks, 8 if you can do it. If I see a pic I can do a pretty good estimate of age. Size isn't as important as facial features and the way they carry themselves, 4 week old kittens walk fairly well (generally) their running needs work though, younger than 4 weeks, while ambulatory, they look like little drunks. Eyes can open from 1-2 weeks depending on how much light they were exposed to in their "nest".

Even after they move to solid food you'll still have to do the towel thing for a bit, until they start going on their own. I use a warm wet wash rag if I have to do it.

I will reiterate what maven said, do not squeeze liquid into a a kitten's mouth and I'll advise that if you keep them in the tub, learn to keep your toilet seat down. Kittens can't climb out until they one day can...and they love the damn toilet.

I've used a syringe on kittens and baby rabbits before and had no problems as long as you are very careful. You just let it drip slowly into their mouths without inserting the syringe directly into their mouth. You can't just squirt it into their mouths. We also used alittle doll baby bottle which worked well also because it was very small and the nipple was about the same as what their mothers would have been.

The orphan foal I raised, I slowly got her to drink the milk replacer out of a bucket. Trying to bottle feed her was very difficult. It didn't take long for her to figure out how to drink instead of suck.

I don't know what is wrong with my phone. It keeps saying it sends the pic email, but I don't get it. That's how I always get pics off my phone. I've sent the pics to a friend as a text no problem, so I have no idea.

Definately less than four weeks. They are still doing the belly walk thing, though can go pretty far pretty fast. Looked over and one was actually standing today. I'm thinking 2-3, but I'm sure the vet will tell me when they see them.

Don't have a bathtub, and definately don't trust them in my shower, the metal cover of the drain comes off easily and there's a nice kitten sized pipe to nowhere underneath! Plus, that would be my only shower. And am definately used to keeping the toilet seat down, my other kitty likes to swim in it and make a huge mess, though she can't get in there right now and it's ticking her off. At the moment, they're in a crate with a heating pad, set on low, where they have room to get off it if they want.

I'm going to get them to the vet tomorrow and will definately let everyone know what they say. They've been peeing a lot, but haven't pooped yet, so I think they might need an enema, but I'll let the vet do that tomorrow if necessary.

Really wish I could get the pics up! It's frustrating and I've never had a problem sending pics before... Grrr.... Time to throw the phone in a lake...

Thanks for the warning about the force feeding. I read that somewhere on the interwebs so have been very careful. I think maybe I've finally gotten them used to the bottle, all three were actually suckling off of it tonight. Apparently my mom thought she would be helpful and come over here and feed them while I was at work and flipped them on their backs and shot the stuff in their mouths. Hopefully they're okay, don't seem to be coughing or anything. Yelled at her about it, but what's done is done I guess. I'll know more tomorrow.

If they're belly crawling I think you're right about the time frame. As for the pee and no poop, it sometimes takes a lot of stimulation, the result isn't much fun, but....

Good thing bringing them to the vet, that's usually the best course unless you're certain about their heritage, and even then a check-up never hurts. Don't worry too much about the force feeding, it's less likely with kittens that with other critters, but can still happen.

I wish you the best with them, let us know what the vet says!

Thanks, I feel a bit better. She had me worried to death when she told me she was shooting it right in their mouths!! I'll let everyone know tomorrow...


Oh, and they start screaming really loud when I keep trying more stimulation down there, I'm scared I'm hurting them...

Try rubbing their tummy with the warm wet cloth, not rough, it's just for stimulation. The vet will be able to tell if they're impacted.

OK, back from the vet. He thinks they're 4 weeks (not sure if I believe him though, I still think 2-3). 2 girls and one boy. They are beginning to stand and walk on rough surfaces for short bursts. Actually sucking from the bottle now, I need a whole crew here, you feed one and the other screaches the whole time and climbs all over.

He said they all look real good. One has a slightly goopy eye (I think I might have gotten some formula in it at some point, oops) so she has eye ointment. Another had cut his ear in the tree and it looks like it's trying to absess, so he has some antibiotics. Other than that, he said to just keep doing what I'm doing, he said he wasn't too concerned about the lack of poop yet, if not by the end of the week I should bring them back.

Anyways, finally got some pics!

This one is Remi, the bigger girl (.7 lbs):



This is Xan, the big boy (.9 lbs), that's cat food on the floor ;) :


And this is all three, the little one is Reno (in the middle). She was hard to get a shot of:



Damn, and I thought horses were hard to get pics of!! They had crawled all in their food, so a little dirty in some, and a little wet in others from where I wiped them off :)

omg I want a bebe kitteh!

They're adorable! Good news from the vet, yay!