I've just realised that I have completely forgot to update my blog (I'm blaming it on sleep depravation having done bottle feeds every 3 hours, including through the night, for the last 2 weeks) with the birth of Kenji's kittens! On Monday the 28th Kenji produced 4 kittens, goodness knows where she was hiding them as she certainly didn't look that big. 3 of the kittens were a good size but the 4th, the only boy, was absolutely tiny. Not only was he tiny but Kenji, being a 1st time mum, hadn't quite grasped the idea that you have to lie down to feed your babies and every time anyone went near her to check on how she was doing she would abandon her babies to come and say hello. The bigger kittens were strong enough to cope with this, but the tiddler very quickly fell behind. This caused Kenji to become confused about what to do with this crying baby and consequently she repeatedly pushed him out of the nest, something a mother would usually do if there is something wrong with the kitten. I decided to try and feed the kitten and thankfully he did take some formula, but still Kenji was not properly mothering him. I stayed up until the early hours (I was feeding one of Beetles kittens every 3 hours, more about that in a minute) but eventually decided that I would have to let nature run its course. I came down 3 hours later to find him cuddled in with his sisters with a full tummy!
For the 1st week I supplemented his feeds with a few bottle feeds, but he has now filled out/grown enough that I am not overly concerned about his chances so have withdrawn the extra feeds. He remains smaller than his siblings, but I expect him to catch them up once they are weaned onto solids in a few weeks time. The first picture shows him at a day old, the 2nd was taken today at 8 days old.
