Phoenix continues to grow and grow. It's amazing how far he's come, but also insane that he's only been in our lives for 3 weeks. Seems like forever and also no time at all. Look at the now and then photos below. How did this happen?
I also finally bought an ice cube tray to help with the pedialyte. We're down to only two bottles left, and each one only lasts 48 hours. My ice cube trays arrived yesterday and were washed overnight. So we were ready to go ahead and freeze them! The bottles are huge, so this frozen batch should last us a while. I also made a mess when filling these. It was fantastic.
One of our miracle nipples ended up ripping while I was watching it. Glad it happened then, Phoenix could have swallowed a piece like this. We thankfully have another miracle nipple we had purchased that we've been using primarily anyway. So this isn't a major loss.
All in all, there really isn't much to say today. Phoenix is still gaining weight and he's still growing. We feed him roughly every four hours now (it used to be every 1-2 hours), which definitely makes it easier to manage. This is also the first time I've left him in a separate room away from either of us for a more extended period of time. With his new pen, moving him while he's sleeping tends to wake him up. So for now, Phoenix is still in the office room while we hang out in the living room. Don't worry, we'll still be able to hear him if he makes a noise.
He's also becoming more observant with his surroundings. He has moments where he kind of hangs out and looks around. This was him last evening hanging out on top of his stuffed cow.
Feeding Time Adventures
Most of the interactions with Phoenix revolve around feeding him, bathing him, or making him go to the bathroom (which sometimes happens while bathing him). As I've mentioned before, he has a great appetite and eats well. The struggle is in his over-excitement in eating. He gets so excited about food that he'll knock the bottle out of your hands (in his efforts to grab it), and crawl across blankets like crazy looking for the milk that's right in front of his face.
It sometimes makes our feedings take about 15 minutes while we get him to calm down enough to eat. We're getting better at this though, and making sure the location as well as milk temperature are correct can help a lot. But since I noticed I didn't take a ton of photos today, I decided to catch some videos and pictures from Nguyen's evening feeding. Check them out below:
Went in to take a video for a blog, and the first one I got was this eating fail. This has happened to both Nguyen and me at different times. Always scary when it happens!
Since Phoenix knew I was trying to catch a video of how eager (aka difficult) he can be when eating sometimes, he decided he would be much more compliant during this feeding.
My favorite video. Nguyen/Phoenix bonding time. You also catch Nguyen tapping on his back - you have to burp a bottle-fed kitten, so that's what he was doing in this video.
Nom, nom, nom!
Is it safe to fall in love yet?
My sister mentioned people wanting to know if they can open up their hearts to this little guy. I've found it impossible not to, though we tried in the beginning! But in terms of chances - the best I can do is tell you what I know. And if anyone else finds other stats or is a kitten expert, please feel free to leave a comment!
Especially in the first week, I did a lot of reading. It was hard to find specific numbers on death rates for kittens. The worst case I found was something citing 15-27% chance of death within the first 8 weeks. I've also seen lower numbers, suggestions that non-pedigree cats have a higher chance of survival, and other factors that affect this number. Things I've read say that kittens can die of fading kitten syndrome (FKS) anywhere in the first 9 weeks of life. FKS is not a specific illness or disease. It's just a general term given to symptoms or signs that the kitten is starting to die. This could be caused by birth defects or viral infections or other causes. So once Phoenix his 9 weeks, I'll feel much better about this whole thing.
Now, let's consider some other specifics about Phoenix. The fact that he was so young and abandoned, as well as underweight (and quite possibly premature), the chances were even more against this little guy. Does "more against" mean he's at the 27% side? Or does it mean beyond that? I suppose we'll never know. What I do know is another stat I read somewhere that suggested that 90% of the deaths that happen in the first 8-9 weeks happen within the first week of life. So if we were to assume that Phoenix was in the 27% chance category, but he's now past 1 week, we should technically be at the 3% chance range! But honestly, there's no real way to quantify this, because all the numbers I have are somewhat wishy-washy anyway. I'd feel much better if I could find a stat on premature kitten who was bottle fed and taken to the vet every time something seemed off. But go figure... I haven't found one of those.
A note on immune systems - the first milks that kitten's receive is called colostrum. This milk helps the kitten's immune systems for the first few weeks of its like. Since we couldn't be sure that Phoenix received any colostrum from his mother, we did dose him with some colostrum that you can purchase. Given that Phoenix was at least cleaned post birth (wasn't bloody, for example), he may have also gotten the proper colostrum from his mother. It's also possible the reason he was abandoned was because he wasn't able to effectively suckle. But either way, we should have had our bases covered on the colostrum front to some extent.
The reason I bring this up is that at this point, the risks that Phoenix have now are all around getting a bacterial or viral infection. It's too early to vaccinate him, and this is also one of the reasons that we keep Asher and Phoenix separated. Asher is fully indoors and up-to-date with his vaccines and health, so we should still be good in that respect. But it also goes both ways - Asher could get something that Phoenix could be carrying. So for now, the closest they've ever been is when Asher walked up to Phoenix's pen.
Here's another stat I read about. Chances of death are highest right after birth and decline after the first week. However, you do get an increase in chance of death again around the time that you begin weaning them off of bottle feeding. It seems like this comes back to just increasing the chance of catching something? And if I recall correctly, it's not like the chance jumps up to how high it was that first week. But that being said, we haven't begun weaning the little guy yet, but that will likely happen in week 4 or 5. And also from speaking with Linda a week ago, she had mentioned that she's had kittens that were doing well and then at 5 weeks something happens and suddenly they are gone. So sad!
So... is it safe to open your hearts to Phoenix yet? I honestly can't say. He's already wedged his way into my heart, and we'll continue to do our best to keep him alive. And while I'm no longer worried he'll just suddenly die without a reason, we can't be complacent yet. Making sure we continue to look for signs of sickness (losing weight, lethargy, poop, etc) is something we do regularly, and so hopefully combating illness (hopefully he just doesn't get sick!) early will also help us out.
But seriously - is it really possible not to open your heart up to this little guy?
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