DOB: 23/03/07

On the 26th February (2007) Carl called me from work and told me that they found 3 kittens at work, they were about 2 weeks old. My immediate thought was, “Oh I want one”, then he goes, “I know what you?re going to say, and yes you can have one.”

If you didn’t know already, Carl hates cats. He didn’t even want me to get Jasmine but fell in love with her. Now he had fallen in love with a little kitten and he was bringing it home. Two other guys chose a kitten each too, and they bought a big pack of kitten formula to split between them.

Carl brought the kitten home, I looked at him and he was so small, there’s no way he was even two weeks old, he has to be less than 3 days old. One of his eyes was still closed and he was squealing so loud, his umbilical cord was still attached and he was all dirty and cold. I fed him some formula, gave him a clean and warmed him up and he seemed so much better. I read online how to care for newborn kitties without their mum, and I needed to feed him every 2 hours, day and night, as well as help it defecate by rubbing its bowel area with a cotton bud. I measured him, he was a tiny 10cms.

Jasmine was scared of him, for reasons I don’t understand..I mean she’s 100 times bigger. But she was scared and hissed at him before running away to hide. I think maybe she was jealous, but I know she was also worried. She used to hiss like that when she first met my dad’s dog, but then they got along fine after that she used to sleep next to him.

Above is the first picture I took of him (from my webcam). He is so tiny, he looks like a rat.

Each week he grew bigger and bigger, I am so glad the first week went well, this is the week that will make or break your kitten, surviving without its mum. I find out that one of the other kittens died, it was the runt and wouldn’t eat or defecate. By two weeks old, he can wobble and stumbles around after Jasmine. Jasmine runs away from him, ignores him and hides from him.

On the 11th of March I let him out for a little walk, well it was more like wobbling, and he walked towards her. Usually at this point she would have ran away. But that day, she leant in to lick him, and not just a quick lick, but a full on grooming session. It was like her maternal instincts kicked in. She even laid down beside him and let him cling to her fur, whilst she cleaned him all over. She then fell asleep with her arms [paws] around him. It was the cutest thing I have ever seen, I went over to her and gave her a pat and told her she was a good mummy. She purred and loved the attention.

At 3 weeks I named the kitty Thomas because Carl and I couldn’t agree on any name. Every single name I said, he would say no. Then I said Thomas and he said yes. So I grabbed the name because it was the only name he would probably agree to. Thomas started to grow teeth and I could see a tooth is about to come through.

At 4 weeks, I find out the other kitten died too. At first I was upset that it had died and started thinking maybe Thomas won’t make it. But then I find out, that the woman looking after him, didn’t keep him in a warm box (with a heat pack) with towels to sleep in, she let it sleep on the floor on a towel where it would get cold. And worse still, I found out she had run out of kitten formula and was feeding it cows milk. Cows milk should only be used as an emergency because it doesn’t have sufficient nutrients for long-time feeding, and the kitten will eventually starve to death. She also didn’t help it to defecate or anything, she expected it to know how to sit down and poop. I was very angry by this, I mean -yes- she didn’t know how to look after a cat, but then maybe she shouldn’t have offered, it would have been better off at the Cat Haven, where I got Jasmine from.

At 5 weeks old he is measured at 25cms and has a cute round belly. He runs around and never stops moving. He knows how to use a litter tray. His teeth are really sharp now, one day they were about 1mm, the next they have grown to 3mm. He keeps biting me thinking I have a bottle for him.

Here he is at 5 weeks:

At 6 weeks I take him off the bottle. It was hard for the first 3 days, he wouldn’t drink from the bowl and kept getting milk up his nose. In the end I had to bottle feed him because I didn’t want him to starve. On Easter Saturday I was drinking some soup from a cup and he was on my lap, when he leant over and started to lick from my cup. I realised he did know how to lick so I made him a warm bowl of milk and put a little soup on top to get the smell and flavour to entice him. He went to the bowl and licked it but then came back to me expecting the bottle. I hid the bottle and put some milk on my finger. I let him lick my finger then put my finger into the bowl so he licked the milk in the bowl.

After he realised he could do it, he drank and drank. He now loves this new freedom that he can drink whenever he wants, not when I “decide” to feed him.

At 7 weeks old he was playing with Jasmine, when she went to eat some kitty biscuits he followed and watched her. He copied her and started eating from her bowl. She got angry at first, but then let him eat some. I didn’t even need to give him soft foods, he went straight to hard biscuits and loves them. At 8 weeks he is big enough that he doesn’t need to sleep in the box anymore. I give him a fluffy cat bed next to Jasmines. His eyes change from blue to brown. I don’t like the colour, they don’t suit him.

The weeks go faster and faster as he grows bigger and bigger. He is friendly with anyone, but most of all loves me because he thinks I am his mummy. He loves to play and loves to sleep on everyones lap. He and Jasmine get on like best friends and “play-fight”. They sleep cuddled up together. His eyes eventually turned green, and he looks gorgeous. They still have brown in them but they are a nice colour.

He is now 4 months old and getting bigger each day. He has finally stopped biting, he has grown longer and leaner and is very active. He cand stand up on his two back feet, and looks like a meercat when he does. Below is a photo of him standing looking up at the camera.

Here is the most recent photo of him, sleeping next to Jasmine. See how big he is now, almost half her size.

^{*I have more pictures of him in the first few weeks, but they are on my mobile phone and I have lost the cord to get them on the computer.}