A bit of an update on how Cabbages is doing this morning.

I don’t know that I can say that she’s getting better, but I can say that she’s not getting worse.

We had some issues with feeding her the food goo last night. Not issues with her, really. Since we’re using a syringe, I’ve been basically making baby food for her, from canned cat food. Since we’re doing such tiny amounts, I’ve been using a mortar and pestle to make it into as smooth a past as I can. Still, the syringe would get blocked while trying to fill it. Then the tip of the plunger would come off, and I’d have to find something thin enough to go through the tip, so I could push it back and get it out.

Well, it turns out the problem was not with the food. It was the syringe. The rubber? laytex? tip of the plunger was simply getting stuck from too much friction. I used a bit of vegetable oil, and it worked beautifully.

This morning, I was even able to feed her a syringe and a half of food goo, without a second person holding her. She’s never liked being held, and once she started to get some strength back, she started fighting the girls off more, leaving them quite scratched up. Today, however, I let her just stay on the warming mat she was enjoying, and feed her. She didn’t like it, but it went so much easier with the lubricated syringe, I was done in no time, even with refilling the syringe.

As much as she doesn’t like the feedings, she’s not throwing up or anything, even after I fed her extra. I’ll still be making the food supper mushy, and watering it down, both to make it easier to get into the syringe, and for extra hydration. We need to pick up more syringes, though. They’re awfully handy things to have around. This one was actually my daughter’s, that she originally used for some of her ink pens. It was really handy to add water to the test tubes when we were doing soil tests. Yes, it gets properly cleaned. But we really ought to have more on hand.

Anyhow. I think I’ll go make some more food goo, to be ready for her next feeding. 🙂

The Re-Farmer