I thought all was going swimmingly here. Sophia would go out now and again, with increasing frequency, but she would come back in at most an hour an a half – and that time was on a night when we had coyotes in the front yard.
Today we have a problem. She went out about 11:00 this morning, and hasn’t come back yet – at 6:00 p.m. I went out to call her, shaking her food container and searching the barn, techniques that have worked in the past to bring her home. No luck. No sign of a small grey cat. She’d vanished for 24 hours before, but she didn’t have nursing kittens then. Now, well, I’m not sure what to think.
But the kittens were shivering visibly when I checked on them, so I currently have a pair of 9 day old kittens sleeping tucked into my sweatshirt. They were trying to nurse for awhile, but my attempts to feed with the dropper I have were in vain. My wonderful husband has gone to get a kitten-bottle (I have formula) and I’ll feed them when he gets home. I’m very much afraid something’s happened to her, but for whatever reason she’s missing, I’m taking it that they are effectively motherless. I was afraid of that happening, given that she put them in our son’s room, he could not manage to leave them in peace, and she’s been quite the nervous mother from the beginning.
So I’m about to try my hand at hand-raising kittens after all. HELP!
Update: Ok, I may have jumped the gun. I called the emergency vet center and was told that at this age, a queen can leave her kittens for as much as 12 hours with no harm done. So I’ll look for her back at her usual (pre-kitten) hour. And the kittens certainly weren’t hurt by an hour’s cuddle in a sweatshirt worn by a warm human-mommy.
And I got to see their eyes open a little. Not much, and not for long, but those were definitely open eyes.