10 day old kitten

Please help! Any advice would be appreciated!

On Saturday June 20, 2009 I assisted an outdoor cat with giving birth. Unfortunately, the box I provided for her was not big enough nor did I prepare it in enough time (I'd never done this before). She had three kittens inside of the box and ran off to what I assumed was the nest she had prepared to birth the rest of her litter. It was in a corner of my next-door neighbor's (also landlord's) covered yet open workshop. The corner is surrounded by equipment so I was confident that they would be secure and yet I could still keep a watchful eye when I'm out on my own patio.

I stayed up through the night to either help her place all kittens in the nest I'd prepared or make sure that she brought the first three to her own nest. On Sunday morning we purchase a bottle and kitten formula - just in case. By Sunday afternoon she had retrieved two of the three. We kept the third outside in the box until Monday evening hoping she would retrieve him. Since she didn't, we prepared what we now refer to as a "Kitty NICU" inside of our utility room.

This little trooper has nice clean towels, a heating pad, a flat long-haired bear, round the clock feeding (including formula,pedialyte and sometimes a bit of Karo just on the lips), constant cleansing and lots and lots of love. It didn't take long before we considered "him" to be a member of the family. He scoots around his box, has a healthy set of lungs and love to have his head and neck rubbed. When washed with a cotton round, he peeps and he poops on his own. His poop is greenish brown.

Here are my concerns:

He only weighs 2.5oz
His eyes are not open (at 10days old)
His right eyes seems to be a bit oozey (just since this evening)
Today he started to struggle while feeding
As of today he's not eaten as much as we're accustomed to him eating at feeding time

I already have in my head to bring him to our vet first thing tomorrow morning. Any advice?

P.S. On Sunday morning we were awakened to kittens crying and dogs barking. My husband went outside only to have to chase two dogs away and find that our little trooper's siblings had been attacked. Two kittens died in his hands, one died later and one was retrieved by their mom and moved to an undisclosed location. This little "guy" we've adopted has to survive. By the way, his siblings were twice his size.

Aw,the poor things. My advice would be to keep on doing what you've been doing. Obviously you have the runt of the litter.

I have always heard that the mother cat "knows" if something isn't right with a baby and sometimes will abandon it. I hope and pray that's not the case here.

Keep up the good work.

Thanks for the good wishes.

That was our thoughts too, that he was the runt. But geez what a runt he is. His mamma's a good kitty. I think that for as young as she is (I'm guessing less than one year), she just had too many to handle.

Do you have any advice regarding his weight and eyes?

teche05

Have you seen this site? http://www.kitten-rescue.com/ It's all about raising orphaned kittens.

Kittens don't always have their eyes open at 10 days. Don't worry about that right now. As far as the eye gunk, you are best to ask your vet in the morning. We can't even speculate what is going on with him.

For his weight, I've been told that orphaned kittens are often smaller than ones cared by their moms. And I had an orphaned litter of 3 one time who had 1 kitten half the size of the others. This is another thing to talk about with your vet tomorrow.

Momofmany,

Thanks for the advice. I'll most certainly discuss "his" eyes with the vet tomorrow.

I'm also glad to know that "he's" not the only kittie half the size of "his" siblings.

This isn't our first time at the "Kitten Dance", however it is our first time at the "Newborn Kitten Dance". Therefore we're pretty much novices until "he's" about 4-5 weeks old.