Monday, October 19, 2009

Little Orphaned Kits

My dear Ceilidh died very suddenly and unexpectedly on Sunday. I have no idea why. She seemed to be in perfect health. She did have a gummy eye that I had treated with chamomile tea, it cleared up completely until about a week ago. Ceilidh was a Californian and I had her for a couple of years. She was a bit on the standoffish side, had more important things to do that letting me rub her head. But she was an excellent mom, having many litters and raising them successfully. I'll miss Ceilidh, she was snobby but she was a delight to watch in 'mom' mode.
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When Ceilidh died, she left 5 thirteen day old kits. She obviously was taking great care of them, they're all huge, round, alert and happy. Their eyes are open and they are nibbling on hay, oats and pellets but they are too young to survive without some kind of version of mother's milk. So I'm hand feeding them. Hand feeding kits usually has a very high mortality rate. I'm hoping because they're not newborns that their survival rate is much higher. I'm using a homemade formula consisting of whole milk, egg yolk and sulfured molasses. I've used it before and it seems to be nourishing. Mind you, I've never raised kits on this formula, just hand fed a couple for a day or two until they could be re-united with their mom and siblings. The biggest thing about hand feeding kits is trying not to drown the poor little things when syringing formula into their teeny, tiny little mouths. It's a drop-by-drop process right now but I'm hoping they'll clue in that the hard plastic thing has yummy food in it, I'm hoping that will make it easier.

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