Foster kittens Poppy, Munchy and Nala

Hi lovelies! I've spoken about my new foster kittens and I've shared them on a few of my social media, I'm catching up on my fosterblog as well, so it's about time to share them here too! These 3 girls are now estimated 7 weeks old, 2 of them are sisters (Poppy and Nala), Munchy was found alone and injured. After getting a week of benchrest, her main issue, her backleg, did improve a bit, but it's far from good yet and we'll take her to the vet on Wednesday. It doesn't seem to hurt though! The sisters are doing a lot better as well, they needed some medical treatment too, now that's almost finished and all that is left is further socializing. Here are my current cuties ♥

Poppy and Nala were a bit scared at first, but that's nothing a little attention from my Dewey won't fix! I'm still a bit impressive for them, but when they're sleepy they forget about all that, and do enjoy their cuddles then.



Munchy on the other hand, loved her cuddles from the very first moment! She climbed up my shoulder at every chance she got, and hugged my face with her little head :)

Nala was inspecting my hand: 'is this thing edible?'

After a week of being locked up, Munchy was free! She unleashed a bunch of that stored energy and raced around. She was a little impressed by it all and hyper at the same time, and got all poofed up, for quite some time :D

Here are more recent pics, Poppy loves to sleep in odd positions, as she demonstartes here... ♥

Sure, you can stretch out like that too!

Nala chillin' on a scratchingpole (I guess the odd resting positions run in the family, haha!)

Oh Poppy... Can you understand why I have a little crush on her?

There's a time and place for everything Dew, and washing a kitten that's on the litter box isn't the right combo... The look in Nala's eyes says it all! :D

Dew's checking what Poppy is doing in one of his snoozing spots

And Dewdew playing together with Nala, giving the kittens the good example, that creature swinging the toy isn't scary!

It didn't take long before the kittens found the big scratchingpole, and Nala and Poppy quickly found out there's toys on top as well!

Munchy almost never sits still, and when she does, she usually moves towards me straight away when I try to sneak a pic. Finally, she was lying still! But then Nala spotted the cam... Not helping here, Nala! :D

This pic looks cute but is quite sad actually... when kittens are taken from their mum (or found alone, like these, they were all found around 5 weeks) when they're too young, it can result in certain behavior. Nala suckles on the other kittens, and if there's no kitten nearby, her own paws. She continues with it for a long time, and this isn't so nice for the other 2, so I notice that at times they move away from her. The other day she was going for her own paw at my lap, and went on for around 30 mins, with a few small breaks here and there. I tried various things, bottlefeeding her (but they don't fully understand the bottle anymore and chew on it), giving her kittenmilk, a soft, fluffy blanket on a SnuggleSafe (heatpad), but nothing is working. She's enjoying those moments, but it's behavior caused by the lack of her mum, and that just breaks my heart :(
I do know that there's examples of cats that show similar behavior while they did stay long enough with their mum, but in general, this is typical behavior for kittens that were taken from mum too early, and Nala does it quite extreme in my opinion. There's a lot more behavioral issues linked to the early separation of mum, but luckily I have adult cats and other kittens, so they can help each other and make up a bit for their loss.

The reason I'm posting this, is because I'd like to share a bit of information besides cute kittens :) Kittens really need their mum. We can't replace what their mum and siblings offer, no matter how hard we try, and they have plenty to learn from them that we simply can't teach them. So if you ever find a litter of kittens, don't just take them away, assuming mum is gone! Unfortunately this happens quite a bit. People mean it well, but often the mum is still nearby, simply afraid to come closer when there's humans around. Contact your local animal shelter, animal ambulance or animal support group, and ask them for advice. There's methods to get both the mum and the kittens, and then they can be taken somewhere safe as a family ♥

Right, enough serious talk, let's continue going 'awhh!' with Nala! :D

Oh my, a rare moment, Munchy enjoying a cuddle without moving!

..... Yeah, that didn't last long. MunchMunch loves to eat, nibble and chew on anything! I'm still trying to teach her I'm no food, but she's not convinced yet :P

Her eye (left for us) is still a bit watery, Munchy had the cat flu, when she was found her eyes were completely shut. She's done with the meds, but I guess her eye got a bit damaged by it all, she often has a teary eye. My Dew has the same, based on that I doubt this'll improve further, but that's another thing for the vet to check!

Oh oh, there comes the paw again, ready to poke and grab, then pull towards her and nibble!

Poppy is a little curious about the camera as well, but at least she won't eat it =)

I'm finally done with sorting the pics on my pc (I'm ignoring the fact that there's more on my phone, haha), and have updated quite a bit on my fosterblog today. There will be more in the coming days, so if you're curious about these 3 sweeties, have a look at my fosterblog :)