Fred, Barney and Betty
On March 3rd, three tiny babies, hours old, had been ‘found’ by an anonymous person and handed in to the vet, who asked if we could help. It consisted of a Tabby girl weighed at 97g, a Grey Boy weighed at 111g and another Grey Boy weighing in at 79g.
After 24 hours in our care, we decided to name the two grey boys Fred and Barney. Barney had immediately took to bottle-feeding and is taking the most we will allow each feed. All thankfully started feeding 5ml every two hours and have done their post-birth poop! Hooray! The little lady, Betty already proving to be a very spirited and wilful little tabby, with a big voice!
Unfortunate news had stuck and the following day was a truly difficult one.
Little Barney, after being such a greedy piglet the day before, started to refuse his feed in the early hours. Bottle feeding is tough, tough on the little orphans and tough on the grown-up humans, but we know what to look for and what to adjust if refusal starts. Something told us that he was in pain and we noticed that his back leg looked a little off, his toes were curling under. Was this because of the pain or was this the cause?
So Barney spent the night on my chest, having tummy massages and lots of love, still being offered his bottle. He pooped perfectly, his tummy wasn’t hard, so it wasn’t his tummy, it had to be something else.
We made an appointment to see Uncle Tris (thank you to whoever cancelled their appointment 5 minutes before I called) and I hoped he would tell me I was worrying over nothing and little Barney’s leg was fine. Sadly that wasn’t the case. In short, his leg was not formed properly and amputation would be the only answer, but that couldn’t be until he was 4 months old and to get him to that stage would just mean too much suffering, so we made the heartbreaking decision to to say goodbye.
We don’t want this to be a heartbroken post, despite our tears. We want to explain the positives. We were able to afford to have his leg x-rayed because of you, the people who support us in what we do. We DID save him;
Because of you, we were able to say yes when we were asked if we could take this little family on in the first place.
Because of you we had the extra milk, bottles, cotton wool etc etc that we need for these tiny souls.
Thanks to you, we were able to stop him from weeks/months of pain. And to us, that IS saving him.
Day four, and Betty is now 138g, from 97g on Wednesday and Fred is now 130g from 111g.
They’re feeding really well and now know we’re there when we open the incubator, so they greet us with squeaks and snorts.
As each feed passes (and each perfect poo!) I’m more hopeful of their outcome. Now they are good birth weights, We are a lot happier.
Day seven and we are again feeling very worried.
We began feeling very concerned for Fred, the second grey boy.
Firstly, we thought he has the same issue with his legs that Barney had, but what was more worrying was his very enlarged tummy. He had a little enema yesterday, which produced a lot of poo, but his tummy is still so swollen and we needed to find out why. He’s having an ultrasound to see if we can get to the bottom of it. Poor little scrap, he’s too small and fragile to be going through this.
As you can see from the pictures, Betty was snuggled up missing her brother.
Sadly, day eight brought us more bad news.
Our darling Fred is now at rest with his brother. We want to again show our thanks to the team at Heathside Vet’s for their continued work and support to us. We don’t know where we would be without them.
Thankfully, 5 weeks later and the third baby girl, Betty is stronger than ever, weighing in at 585g compared to 97g when she first arrived.
This has truly been a hard few weeks for the team at The Cat Welfare Group. Starting on our own was a scary prospect as we were literally starting from scratch, and funds are very much needed for vet bills, equipment and food. We will repeat and repeat that EVERY penny raised goes toward cat care and rehoming. It's only thanks to YOU and YOUR support that we are up and running, caring for animals who need us.
Please give what you can today and support our work.
