Stuffed - Day 23

Another good and straightforward day.  Phoenix had prime-time in two video meetings.  He eats like a monster, and he continues to grow!

Phoenix continues to gain weight as he should.  He's now at 280g; that's almost 10oz!  He's now well over 4x the weight than we got him at.

He has begun walking around more and exploring.  And as he walks around, his tail sticks up!  This is another tiny milestone to celebrate 😺.

Phoenix also got to go on camera twice today.  Once at work and again with my family this evening.  Oddly enough, I'm not really one for this kind of screen time.  I'm constantly worried that I'm imposing my kitten on people.  But undoubtedly, for a number of people, Phoenix (and pets in general!) have an ability to bring some joy and smiles to people's lives.  So I'd like to believe that Phoenix brought some positivity to people's lives today.

Feeding Frenzy

The little guy eats so much!  His formula contains the following things from left to right in the photo below!

1. Pumpkin - helps with the diarrhea
2. KMR (Kitten Milk Replacer) powder - this has all the nutrients!
3. Probiotic powder - to help with all the gut bacteria
4. Pedialyte - gets the electrolytes, helps with dehydration.  It's sitting in a bowl of hot water to help warm it a bit.

The formula only lasts 24 hours.  This is more so to make sure that bacteria doesn't grow and the formula doesn't go bad.  This is also the same reason why pedialyte should be tossed after 48 hours.  I've recently switched to making new batches in the morning - though I forgot I made this switch today, so ended up making new formula during our morning check-in meeting at work.

I tend to make roughly 90mL of powder at a time.  He eats around 70mL per day at this point, so the 90mL is a good estimate to make sure we have enough.  We also have general targets on how much he should eat per feeding.  Given his current size and weight, we've been targeting around 10mL per feeding, give or take a few.  You also don't want to overfeed, since that can also lead to diarrhea.

When we were syringe feeding, it was very easy to control the number of mLs that he ate.  Now that we use the bottle, we use the change in grams before and after feeding to roughly estimate the number of mLs.  I had done some "tests" using the syringes and weights, and for the most part, 1g = 1mL of formula.  So this has been working well for us.  But when you're actively feeding him, it's hard to see the differential in terms of how much he's eaten.  Add in the fact that some days he eats much faster than others, and it's hard to tell.  So many times I've thought, "ok, you HAVE to be well over 12mL".  I then take the bottle away and find out it was only 2-4mL of food.  What??

So, hopefully you'll understand how this happened.  I was taking care of the 4am feeding last night.  I had given him the bottle the first time, and did the, "you must be done" dance, only to find out he had 4mL (typical, when will I learn? 😑).  So after re-warming up the milk to the right temperature again, I decided I'd just let him tell me when he was done.  This has worked in the past; he eats and eventually turns his face away (or his milk mustache grows in size).  So I went forward with this plan.  You also have to know that sometimes hand cramps are involved, but he gets so excited when eating sometimes that you just don't want to stop him because getting him to eat again could take another 5 minutes.  Between trying to get him to latch and then needing to warm the milk again because it took too long, feedings can sometimes take us 15-30 minutes.  Keep in mind, it's also 4am.  I'm tired, and I just want him to eat so I can go back to sleep.

Alright, stage set, right?  I got Phoenix to latch, and he was happily eating away.  I had my hand near his throat per usual to make sure he was consistently swallowing.  At one point, I thought, "this seems like too long", but reminded myself how I fall into this trap all the time.  So away he went.  At one point, it got to the, "ok, this is WAY too long", so I looked closely at the bottle.  The milk was almost gone! 😱 I took a measurement, and the little guy had eaten a whopping 23mL (on day 23!) of formula.  What?!

The thoughts and feelings I had in that moment were very strange.  It went roughly like this:

1. Are you going to throw this up?  Is this dangerous?
2. Is this going to be what kills you?
3. How did you make room for this?
4. You truly are my kitten - you clearly take after me.
5. You make me proud. 😂

Clearly, Phoenix had no adverse affects.  His poop has been improving, and I could say that maybe there was a bit more liquid to his poop today, which makes perfect sense.  We had every intention of extending his next feeding out to 5 hours instead, but he woke up right around 3.5 hours and was looking for food.  All in all, we'll also keep an eye on it.  Since his weight is going up, I'm not concerned.  But if we were to have this appetite but not be gaining, it could be sign of some kind of worm or parasite.

And of course - I've gone back to the "it seems like you've eaten too much, oh it was only 4 mL, sigh, let's try again" dance.  Though honestly this has become easier since he's been a bit calmer from eating (camera or is he finally realizing he'll eat faster if he calms down?).

An Unexpected Visitor

While we were sitting and watching TV, there was a thud against our sliding door.  It was a cat.  It seems that a moth that was attracted to the light in our house was on the door, and our cat-friend went after it as cats do.

I tried to snap some photos.  I had caught a photo of this cat (or maybe a similar one?) a bit ago to share with everyone.  It shows the colors that I'm guessing Phoenix might develop.  So here's a photo (zoomed in with poor quality and zoomed out) of our visitor.

Photos and Videos

Random photos throughout the day.  He's started to learn that around feeding time, it makes sense to wait at the "door" of his pen.

He has been doing this typically some point after eating.  He usually falls asleep shortly after he kind of goes into this silent speculative kind of mode.  I wonder what's happening.  It's almost as if he's looking at something or noticing me for the first time.  It made me worried the first time, but now I find it endearing and gets me some of my favorite photos!

Not much else to say here.  Up and coming in Phoenix's life will be experimenting with litter training and bringing in toys.  The litter training might make sense to wait for the weekend, but maybe not.  Let me sleep on it.