My SIX (originally 3)

stewball this is for you (mostly)...my six beauties and a little backstory on each...
Luna was our first. She was a stray from what I would call a semi feral colony. She was such a sweet girl but off to a rough start. Her previous owner (a teenage friend of my son, whose mother did not want her to have the cat) had kept her in a vehicle most of the time in an attempt to conceal her from her own parents. When my son found out about the kitty, he brought her home to me. She was just a little fuzz ball. Covered in fleas, dehydrated and scared. She hd coccidia and hadn't had a good meal in probably a week. She was 4 1/2 weeks old. Here's one of our first pictures of her.
Here you can see how tiny she was!
We nursed her back to health and here she is now - my Luna Belle
. She is 6 months old this week.

After we had her for about a month we adopted Lily. They loved each other and Lily was a beautiful tabby girl. Unfortunately she had coccidia so badly it overtook her little system and she passed away despite all the medications and the fluids. We tried so hard to save her but when we could see that she had given up we did the humane thing for her. Here are some good pics of Lily before she was too sick.
. She was a sweet girl!
After Lily, we adopted out black beauty- Layla. We got Layla before Lily was showing signs of illness. She was 11 weeks when we got her. She too, came with coccidia which seems to be very prevalent in the shelters. She was adopted through the humane society here in our town. She had to be nursed back to health but she is well and lovely! She's our quiet reserved prim and proper loner. She doesn't purr often but she is content and when she does purr, she lets you know she loves you. Here are some pictures of Layla.
Layla is about a week older than Luna.
After Layla, we adopted a sweet orange boy from a kill shelter in our area. He was 7 weeks old when we got him. He is a pretty kitty! My toddler picked him out and said "that's my kitty mama". And he really is!
Here's Leo when we got him... Sleeping with dad... I'm pretty sure they must have been watching football since he's clearly calling a touchdown!
Leo did get to spend some time in quarentine as he also had coccidia when we adopted him. He got very ill and we thought we were going to lose him but he pulled through. Here he is now - he's a real lovebug! He is 19 weeks.
The same week that we adopted Leo, we drove to a kill shelter about 90 miles away where all the kitties had nasty uri's and weren't doing very well. And this is what we brought home...meet Lexi!
She's a fluffy tortie girl who's smart and sassy! Lexi loves to play fetch! She did not have coccidia yay!! She did have to be isolated until her FHV flare up subsided. Here are some fun pictures of Lexi.
I thought Lexi would be our last. Then I got an email about this sweet cream tabby girl. I so wanted a cream tabby girl and had been looking for one. This sweet baby was from the same shelter as Leo. She was born there, one of five. When I adopted Leo, I actually saw her there with her litter and mama nursing. She was the only cream in a litter of all orange boys! I commented to the shelter staff that I wished she was old enough and I would take her too! Then 6 weeks later they emailed me. She was still there so I immediately went and got her. This is Evie
She loves her brother! Evie is 14 weeks old now!
And just when I thought it couldn't get any more fun around here...my adult son who just recently moved away from home had gotten a kitten and then realized what a huge responsibility it was. His kitten had fleas and coccidia and ear mites so badly we thought he would lose his hearing. He tried for several weeks to raise him and finally called me and asked me to take him in because he could not afford proper vet care. So my "grandkitty" Loki has joined us and will be living here. He's in quarentine right now but has his recheck for coccidia and earmites this week so we are hoping to be introducing him to the others this weekend. Here is Loki. I don't have many pictures of him yet. He wasn't doing too well when he got here. He has food on his nose and was finally getting some decent food and he was hungry! He gained 8oz in 48 hours after moving in with us. I was so mad at my child for the condition he let this kitty get in but very thankful that he allowed me to step in!
So yes that's 6 babies we have and they really are all babies - ranging from 14 weeks to 26 weeks! They keep us very busy and they make us smile! We love them all. The only time I can get them all on camera together is when they eat! We will see how it goes when Loki gets in the mix! That's Luna, Evie, Layla, Leo, and Lexi.
We ran out of L names by the time we got to Evie! Lol! Hope you enjoyed the pics and a little bit of their history!

What a lovely family! I bet there is never a dull moment in your house! I just love them all, and pray that sweet Lily is watching and loving from the Rainbow Bridge! You will surely be blessed fro loving and caring for so many, thank you!

newmamaof3 They are all gorgeous. What about Lola, Lilly?
What's this illness they all had.

stewball the illness they all had is called coccidia. It's a Protozoa parasite that lives in the intestines. It is very common in shelters as it is haggle contagious through litter box sharing. That's why they each had to be quarantined until they were cleared of it. Many cats can live with it and have no problems but in young kittens it can take over and multiply so rapidly that the diarrhea becomes profuse and they dehydrate. Also if they have a heavy load of it in their system they can sustain damage in the intestines that cannot heal. That is what happened to our Lily. The medications were not working fast enough as the organism was multiplying too rapidly for her system to recover. She dehydrated and bled internally and gave up her fight. All of the others recovered although they were quite sick for several weeks. After our experience with Lily we learned which medications were better and our vet was able to get a different drug for them which helped. The medication of choice for our vet is Ponazuril (which we suggested to him and he had not heard of before). Thanks to this our others recovered and survived. We know that they all had the illness when we adopted them because they went to the vet and were immediately tested before ever coming home. Some kittens get very I'll with it and others do not and some get very ill and recover. I'm just thankful that the rest of them recovered!

You are amazing. All of them get on?
I'd love so many but I can't have. I have my two.

Yes they all love each other! No fighting here! We will see about Loki when he is well but so far nothing but kitty love...here's a nap time pileup...

awww! that a beautiful family <3 i'm sorry to hear about lily but it looks like she had a wonderful home!

Thanks hmckinney they are all precious. Lily had a short life but she was very happy