Kitten Tragedy

 We lost one of our kittens, the black and white one, Steve.

He had been sick for at least a week but he was a strong boy (we thought) and life has been heinously busy and we didn't even have a vet...

We put him back in the barn with a heated cat house and gave him succulent wet food and water and love but he wasn't eating well and he didn't look good...

So Monday night I decided I would take him to the vet the next morning, which turned out to be too late. He was gone on Tuesday.

His brothers (the two black cats) were also showing signs of the illness by then so I did find a vet (our old one has been difficult to schedule with) and took them both in. They have some upper respiratory infection.  They got a shot of penicillin and antibiotics. One of them, Morro, looked super lethargic but today he looks better.

I feel very sad and guilty about Steve.  I have been SO busy lately; we have had dental appointments and college stuff and all that.  I just missed that he was so sick.

We will miss him. Yesterday was a pretty lousy day as I found out he had died at about 7:30 a.m. and then every kid who came down was told, and everyone was sad. He was the favorite kitten of several of the children.

As Kevin says, life with pets isn't always the fluffy fun stuff.  Sad things happen.  Animals often hide how poorly they are feeling and I really did not realize how bad off Steve was.

We rescued the kittens from a woodpile after their Mom went missing and Steve had a great life, but it was too short.

Rest in peace, Steve.

Oh, and after all that work to get the sun room cleaned out, it is now a kitten haven again. We decided to have all four in the sun room for now to keep an eye on illness and to make it easier to administer medications.  The girls (the orange ones) SEEM Ok but they have been around their brothers a lot so it seems like it will be a miracle if they don't get it also.  If so, we'll make sure to intervene quickly.