'Rising from the Ashes' is a title that likely does not inspire sentiments of "raising a neonatal kitten". The Bay Area had been plagued by smoke from so many wildfires in the time leading up to our discovery of little kitten. But that Wednesday, our world turned an eerie orange (SF Gate article), and a number of people commented on how it seemed like the world was ending.
A Mostly Sleepless Night
Despite the concerns that the Apocalypse was upon us, the world hadn't ended for our little kitten. He had successfully made it through the night! And despite watching the day come into an awkward colored sky, passing this first hurdle put a smile on my face.
I didn't sleep much that first night. About 2 hours total. No, it wasn't because the kitten needed my constant attention. We fed him every 2 hours, but I was so sure he wouldn't last the night. I had convinced myself this kitten was at death's door the night before, and every time I peeked in on him, I expected him to be gone. So I spent my night googling and reading. What were the changes he would die? What are signs of Fading Kitten Syndrome (FKS)? How much should he eat? What if he doesn't eat enough? What color should his poop be? How often should he pee? What does it mean if he doesn't stop crying? And the list goes on and on.
And everything I read wasn't promising. A typical kitten should have been born 90-100g. Some breeds may be smaller, but in general, a kitten under 75g is not a good sign. Our little kitten was only 64g, and this increased his odds of dying from FKS, and it made it even harder to sleep easy knowing that the odds were against our little kitten.
Developing a Routine
Kitten's Home
The tail end of day 1 and most of day 2 really fell into us establishing a system of care for our little kitten. We had picked a cuddle buddy for him (a stuffed cow), and set up a laundry basket with a fleece blanket (also cow) to keep him warm. At the bottom of the basket is a towel, followed by a heating pad, followed by the fleece blanket you see in the photo.
Admittedly, as I slowly became more attached to the little guy, I spent more time on day 2 fussing about his setup as opposed to taking pictures, but here's a photo of the little kit on day two and his initial setup.
You'll notice that there's a switch from a green fleece to a cow fleece blanket. I got the chance to realize why it's important to line your blankets with a towel. Little guy found it in him to poop and had made a bit of a mess. Seems like both Nguyen and I had a long way to go in developing our poop-assist technique, because this was the second time little kitten had pooped on his own.
To accommodate our schedules, little Kitten spends the day with me in the office I work from home out of. In the evening, we move him into the living room. And in the evening, we move him to the bedroom. Since we're sleeping at night time, we wanted to make sure we had a lid on our laundry basket set up. While it seems unlikely that little Kitten would find a way to crawl up the sides of the blanket at such a young age, it wasn't a chance I was going to make. To accommodate, we came up with the setup on the right.Kitten Stats
As part of our routine, we also made it a point to keep track of our kitten's progress. This included tracking when he was fed, how much he ate, how much he weighed, and whether or not he peed/pooped.
He was still only 2.25 oz, and on the second day, we switched to using grams to get a more granular measurement. At 9:45am, he was only 64g in weight, and he had not budged from the day prior. By 8:15pm, he had jumped up to 70g! Good news, but unfortunately, not the 10g we had hoped for, but also not weight loss (a very bad sign).
Grumpy Brother
I suppose I should mention that we do have another cat. He's 10 years old and his name is Asher! (No, Asher's name didn't play a role in this blog post, it really was just the ash all over the world around us that day). Asher was NOT happy with the newcomer in the house. While we made sure to keep the two separated (for the safety of both cats when we aren't sure about viruses, worms, etc), Asher made it a point to ignore me that day. In fact, after eating his breakfast, he took to hiding under the couch, and then later spending time exclusively in his cat tower. It's less clear about whether he was upset at the flea medication I put on him after bringing in a stranger to the house or about the stranger being there in general. Either way, these aren't photos from that day (considering he was hiding), but here's our usually cuddly Asher.
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