Urgent! Baby kittens found!!

Hi everyone,

I'm not sure where to post this, so please feel free to move it wherever is appropriate. A co-worker of my boyfriend just found 2 tiny kittens crying under her porch. She thinks they are no more than a week old. One of them is just starting to grow hair, but the other one is still pink. She brought them in because it's freezing outside, but she has no idea what to do with them. Our local shelter is closed until Tuesday, and she's wondering how to take care of them until then.

Does anyone know how to take care of very young kittens? I don't know what she should feed them or anything. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks so much!

If you go to the search button at the top of this page, just below the Royal Canin ad, and search on kitten raising, or something like that, there are lots and lots of posts from knowldegable people. The kittens have to be kept warm, out of drafts, and they need to be fed KMR every 2 hours. They should be in a box with towels for a bed, and the I think I remember people saying that you can make a makeshift warming bottle by putting hot water in a plastic water bottle, wrapping that in towels and placing it at the edge of their box. Good luck! Tell tour friend they are wonderful for caring for these babies.

This thread my have some helpful information.
http://www.thecatsite.com/forums/sho...ewborn+kittens

are you sure they are kittens? Not to sound silly but every kitten i have ever seen was born with hair. Rats, mice, hamsters on the other hand are born with out hair.

You need to do all the above as well as stimulate their bums with a warm damp cloth after they eat-

I did a search for you here are some links:baby kittens


Hand rearing kittens

My boyfriend just let me know that they still have their umbilical cords. What should be done about that?

hey're definitely cats, not anything else.

the cords will fall off by themselves. I think they really need to get to a Vet ASAP. Hand rasing kittens is very very tricky, and them not having any hair really makes me worry.

It's midnight here, and I called both emergency vets in the area. One of them wouldn't take them at all, and the other one wouldn't take them unless we paid $75 plus a fee for each day that they stayed there. As much as I'd love to be able to pay for that, I'm young and in debt and already have 2 cats (one who has proven to be high mainentance already).

My boyfriend went to Walmart and bought some kitty formula and eyedroppers to feed them with. He's going to spend the night and make sure they're fed every 2 hours. I also told him that he needs to stimulate their bums, so he'll figure that out too. His co-worker has them in a box with a heating pad and said that they are much warmer than when she brought them in.

Hopefully the SPCA will take them tomorrow. I worked there for a little while and they never turned down a stray kitten. They're closed, but I'm hoping some volunteers and kennel techs will be there so they can be dropped off. I'll post updates tomorrow.

Thanks so much for the advice- it was EXTREMELY helpful

The poor little babies. I was at the beach one day this summer and this boy found a kitten I could have been no more then 2 weeks old. It was just abandoned at the beach. The boy and his mother were taking the kitten to take care of it.

I hope the little kitties are doing okay. Lucky for them they were found.

Heart goes out to the little ones.

These kittens are more than likely preemies and they need a vet NOW! They are severely health compromised by not being with mom, they need warmth and stimulation.

So he doesn't have to figure it out, the easiest way is to run a thin trickle of warm (not hot water) after the kitten eats, stick his bum into the trickle and gently using a cloth make a rotating motion on his tummy and his bum. Go gently, and don't do it for a long period of time, the kitten should let loose almost immediately. You should be tube feeding these babies, an eye dropper or syringe runs the risk of flooding tiny lungs. Please get these babies to the vet so he can assess them and quickly!

Good luck!

These kittens will die if they are not seen by a vet immediately. They will become hypothermic and it happens very quickly and sadly by the time I have posted this I suspect if they have not recieved proper care they will be gone. If you still have them and they are alive then they need a temperature of at least 27 degrees celcius and regular feedings of kitten formula from a bottle for kittens every 2 - 3 hours. There is so much other care that they require at this crucial stage but I wont go on about it unless you are caring for them olus I think someone else has provided a link that I am sure will be very helpful. Please let us know how the kittens are - I am worried!

Put me in the worried category as well. It is tough enough to hand raise full term kitten, but preemies are at such a risk.

I really do not think the ASPCA is going to take them. They put down healthy kittens that are too small to fend for themselves.

I'm very worried also.

Hey everyone. Unfortunately, one of the kittens died during the night, and the other one died this morning. It was not possible whatsoever to get them to a vet last night as niether of the local emergency vets would take them. My boyfriend and his friend stayed up with them all night and did everything they could. The one that died this morning apparently looked like he was going to be fine, but he didn't pull through.

The reason we were going to bring them to the SPCA is because the local one here does not euthanize healthy cats. I used to work there, and they will keep a healthy cat until it is adopted, no matter how long it takes. Any kittens brought in that were too young to fend for themselves were fostered until they were old enough to be adopted. They are not a no-kill shelter, because they do euthanize chronically ill cats. They always took stray kittens no matter what to see if there was anything they could do. Even if the kittens ended up being euthanized because they weren't healthy, the SPCA may have had the resources to do more than any of us could.

It's really sad that they didn't make it, but I'm glad that they died in a warm environment with some food rather than freezing and starving to death outside. I hope that they were comfortable for their short lives.

Thanks to everyone for your advice.

I'm so sorry to hear that!

I'm so sorry We lost three babies this summer