cat health

We made it!

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We made our much needed trip into town!

As I write this, we have warmed up to -7C/19F, with a wind chill of -13C/9F. It was just a couple of degrees colder and had stopped snowing when my daughter and I headed out to town.

For all the clearing we did, once I started down the driveway, I didn’t dare stop until I got to the road. My daughter could take care of the gate for me, so that worked out.

The winds were still coming from the south-southwest (as I write this, they are now coming from the northwest), and the roads were drifting over, but we were still able to get through all right.

We were a bit too fast with our shopping, though, and when we stopped to get the mail, the post office wasn’t reopened for the afternoon, yet. So we unloaded the van, put stuff away, then my daughter crawled through their upstairs window to start shoveling the roof while I waited until I could go back to the post office to pick up our packages. If we didn’t get them today, we wouldn’t be able to get them until Monday.

I was heading back out in less than an hour, and by then it had started to snow again.

Very picturesque, but the visibility had dropped dramatically. I’m glad I only had about 3 miles to go!

Once back, I brought out the telescoping roof shovel we’ve got, to get some other parts of the roof. I did as much as I could reach over the sun room which, unfortunately, isn’t very far. I was able to clear under the Starlink dish, however, and I’m glad I could. Once the snow under it was moved, a whole bunch more immediately slid off the dish. I really appreciate that these dishes are self heated!

The cool thing is, even though there was snow built up on the dish, we’ve had almost no noticeable loss of connectivity. There was an hour last night that had a series of short outages, due to network error, while this morning there was one, due to obstruction, but in all that, there was only one that was long enough for even be noticed.

Aside from the sun room roof, I also got as much as I could off of the entryway roof. The west side of it had a drift that was at least 4 feet thick!

I’m glad we got that done, though I’m a bit concerned about tomorrow. We’re supposed to meet with the woman that will be fixing our cats, to pick up donated cat food and drop off Cabbages into care. With the way things are blowing, we might have issues getting out of our driveway. I do expect the plows to be out already, but it’s hard to say when our gravel roads will be done.

It’s a bit late, considering Cabbages is to be taken in tomorrow and getting vet care through this organization, but one of the things we picked up today was cat milk. We need to get more calories and nutrients into her, and I’m hoping she’ll actually like this stuff enough that we won’t need to use the syringe. I’ll be trying that out once I’m done writing this post.

It does look like the snow had stopped again, so that’s a good sign for getting out tomorrow! Though we are supposed to be getting cat food donated to us, I still looked for some while at the grocery store, and the big bags were out of stock, just like the stores in the city. There have been real issues with lack of inventory for quite some time. Particularly in the big bags. We were never quite able to stock up adequately. All the more reason to be thankful for the donated food!

Now if we can just pray that we don’t get snowed in – and neither does the woman we are supposed to meet up with tomorrow!

The Re-Farmer

She ate kibble!

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We are so thrilled!

Last night, I actually saw Cabbages eating some kibble! It was just a few pieces, but this is the first time I’ve seen her eating in days.

I’m pretty sure she would have eaten earlier, but when I saw her by the food and water bowls, I topped them up, and every other cat in the room came running. I made sure there was some kibble right in front of her, but any Turmeric kept trying to groom her, and she finally left. :-D

We’re still feeding her food goo with the syringe, of course. Which is why she’s looking so dishevelled in the above photo. :-D I had just finished feeding her, and she was most displeased with me!

She still looks like crap, does not seem to be regaining weight yet (still not enough calories getting into her. :-( ), but she is drinking more often, is more active, and has even been trying to get out of my office/bedroom. If we didn’t have to worry about her hiding in some crevice where we can’t find her or reach her, we wouldn’t be keeping her in.

We’re also still steaming her when we shower, if there’s even the slightest hint of wheezing when she breathes. She seems to like it. The fact that the house is so dry and chilly, and she’s so skinny, she’s probably quite enjoying her saunas.

We like it when we have happy, steamed Cabbages. ;-)

The Re-Farmer

Little Cabbages

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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

Digging our way out (and a Cabbages update)

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What a beautiful day today!

The weather app tells me it’s -25C/-13F, with a wind chill of -36C/-33F right now, but it’s bright and sunny, and actually felt a lot warmer while we were out this morning.

While doing my rounds this morning, it was time to assess just how much the storm affected us. We got most of the snow during the day, then mostly high winds overnight.

The cats that shelter under the storage house were having issues! This path was cleared yesterday morning. One spot was mostly drifted over – you can see it further back – with a bit of space the cats could get through. The other was a steep, narrow drift they had problems jumping over!

So one of the first things I did after putting food out was shovel around the kibble house, digging out the metal water bowls in the process, and opening up their paths.

Then I went around the house with feed for the birds and deer, and startled a deer that was right next to the house, almost at the dining room window! I’ve never seen them go on the house side of where the lilacs and cherry trees are. Not even tracks.

Once the food and water was done, I made my way to the gate to unlock it.

Opening it took a fair bit of effort! Most of the driveway wasn’t bad. We could have left it and driven through the snow, just fine.

We would not have made it through the end of the driveway, though.

Once I got it open (and shovelled out the path to the gate cam), it was time to break out Spewie and start blowing some snow.

I cleared in front of the garage, first, which was a more difficult area. The wind swirls around there, so the snow was deeper, and the top more hard packed. I did eventually make it to the end of the driveway, though!

I didn’t try to go too close to the ground, though, as I didn’t want to be hitting gravel and rocks, so the snow is actually deeper than the furrow made by the snow blower by about 2 or 3 inches. More than that at the end, where the remains of a plow ridge is.

The plows had not gone by yet, but it looks like some farmer cleared a lane with their tractor. At first I thought it might have been done by a truck with a plow attachment I’ve been seeing in the trail cam files lately, but those treads are not from any pick up!

I had managed to do about 4 passes with little Spewie, all the way to the road, when it stop running. I’d tripped the power bar, where it’s plugged in, in the garage. While I was trudging to hit the switch, I could hear the reverse warning sound of heavy equipment, nearby.

It was the plow.

*sigh*

You can see how much I’d done on the left, where the snow is a bit lower. There was no way little Spewie could make it through that! So I had to shovel a lot of it away. Thankfully, being almost immediately after the plow went by, it was still loose and light. Once I got a fair bit of it shoveled, then I could redo the end with little Spewie.

It was still a bit much for that little machine, and one of my daughters widened the end of the driveway with a shovel while I continued working on the rest of the driveway. I didn’t stop to take any more photos, but I was able to clear enough that we will be able to back the van up to the little gate in the chain link fence to unload. The girls, meanwhile, finished shoveling out all the paths in the inner yard. The path to the compost pile was almost completely filled in!

By the time I was done, I was completely soaked from all the snow blown back onto me. My down filled coat is not as waterproof as it used to be, and my shoulders were soaked right through the layers I was wearing under it! I was wearing both a hat and cowl, which was bulky enough to hold my hood in place, so I didn’t have to close it up in front, obstructing my breathing. They were wet, all the way through, too. My glasses weren’t just frosted over. They were iced over! I was very happy to come inside and make a nice, big pot of tea to warm up with!

While all this was going on, I got some texts from the woman who will be helping us with the cats. She told me that she will be in town on Saturday, and can pass on some cat food for us. This will be much appreciated, as the store shelves have been quite empty, so we’re not as stocked up as we should be. She also expects to be able to start taking some of our cats in the next week or two, once they have finished adopting out their current batch!

She also asked about cabbages. I told her she seems to be getting a bit better, drinking water on her own again, but still not eating (at least not while I’m there to see it), so we are feeding her with a syringe. She said she should probably take Cabbages back with her when we meet on Saturday, so that they can get her to a vet right away. This is greatly appreciated, since we won’t be able to do that until the end of the month. She said she can’t make any promises, since we don’t know why she’s sick, which makes sense, of course.

So it looks like we’ll be saying goodbye to Cabbages this weekend, and she will get the vet care she needs.

I do hope this works out for her, and I am very grateful that she offered to do this.

Which makes getting ourselves dug out just that much more important!

The Re-Farmer

A Cabbages update

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After a brief and sunny respite, it looks like the storm has finally hit us for real. Temperatures have dropped to -21C/-6F, with a wind chill of -35C/-31F – and this time, we don’t look at all sheltered from it, from what I’m seeing on the live feed of the garage cam! It’s supposed to end overnight, and then tomorrow, we’re supposed to reach a high of -24C/-13F with a wind chill of -36C/-33F. It’s supposed to be about the same for one more day, before warming up to -8C/18F!

Which means we’re going to be digging ourselves out for a couple of very cold days.

Meanwhile, we are warm and safe indoors, and I thought it was a good time for a Cabbages update.

Beep Beep keeps coming over to groom her, then Turmeric comes over and tries to force her way in between them! Jealous of the attention her adopted sister is getting, it seems. :-D

Cabbages is slowly getting better. I see her drinking water on her own more often, so we’re not as concerned about using the syringe to get her hydrated. She has little interest in eating, though. It looks like she can’t smell food right now! Her breathing is fine, so she’s not stuffed up. She’s also more active, and fights us off more when we try to feed her. She stomach seems stable enough that we’re using the syringe to feed her a little more often, and we’ll keep increasing the feedings as much as we are able.

I get to do the feeding part while my daughters have been taking turns, holding her. Both of them have bloody scratches to show for it! She may be almost skin and bones right now, but she’s still remarkably strong.

She still spends most of the day sitting like a little bony loaf in different spots in my office/bedroom all day. As I write this, she is back on the warming mat. :-) The main thing, though, is that she is improving!

The Re-Farmer

Stretched! (Cabbages update)

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With Cabbages losing the weight that she has, she’s been feeling colder to the touch (she’s not shivering or anything like that), so I set out the heated mat for her.

This is not Cabbages. This is a very pushy Turmeric, taking up the entire mat!!

Sometimes we’ll find Cabbages, Turmeric and Beep Beep, all smooshed together on the mat.

Cabbages still isn’t eating or drinking much on her own, so we’re continuing to use the syringe to keep her hydrated. We’re being more cautious about the quantity of solid food we’re making her eat, as we don’t want her to throw it up or something. Though she isn’t looking any better (too soon for that), she has definitely perked up. She struggles to get out of my daughter’s arms a bit as we use the syringe – Cabbages has never enjoyed being held much, so this is actually a good sign. This morning, when I opened the door to let various cats in and out, she actually left the room! She has shown no interest in leaving the room since we brought her in.

Turmeric is still snarling at the tuxedos, though when Layendecker and “grandma” came in, she left them alone. She’s been growling at Fenrir, though. We still have no idea why she turned into a snarling beast, and she does seem to have calmed down – as long as she’s in my office/bedroom. I’m hoping to try letting her out again today, but only if there are several of us around, just in case she switches to beast mode again.

Cabbages, meanwhile, settled herself in that Styrofoam “bowl” that was from the inside of the new washing machine. We kept it because the cats love it so much. We decided to bring her back into my office. We didn’t want to take a chance of her going under the couch or somewhere like that, and not being able to find her later. Keith did that when we were giving him his antibiotics every day, and we ended up having to have 2 of us lift the couch while a third snagged him and dragged him out!

Keith is doing very well, by the way. Completely back to full health. He gave us quite a scare!

The cats sure do keep us on our toes!

The Re-Farmer

Morning critters

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First up, I’m happy to say that Cabbages is seeming better this morning. She got more hydration last night, and we even got some solid food into her – also through the syringe. She didn’t like it, but she ate it!

We are still keeping Turmeric closed up with me. I’ve been letting other cats in and out, and while she did growl at the tuxedos, once they were inside, she seemed okay with them. As soon as she’s out of my office/bedroom, however, she still turns into a snarling beast for some reason.

Beep Beep has pretty much moved in and taken Cabbages under her wing, so I had the three of them with me last night. I was awakened by the sound of a cat scratching under the door to get out, and it was Cabbages! That’s the first time she’s made the effort since we brought her into the room.

It turned out their food and water bowls were empty. When I refilled them, Cabbages parked herself at the water bowl and stayed there. I did see her drinking, but mostly, she was just a loaf. I was in and out a few times, and she stayed like that for at least an hour. Right now, she’s back on my bed, next to Beep Beep.

We will keep up with the hydration and the semi-liquid food, even though she is a bit more active.

The other cats still seem very confused by my closed door. I usually have the majority of them splattered all over my bed, finding myself trapped by several when I wake up in the morning. They’ve had to find other places to sleep. A couple of them already preferred my husband’s hospital bed, but now he’s finding his bed covered with 4 or 5 at times. That bed is pretty narrow, so they basically take up the whole thing when that happens! Mostly, though, they have been converging on my daughters, upstairs.

They have not been getting much sleep, lately!

I do wish I knew what was going on with Turmeric, and why she still hasn’t settled down, yet!

Anyhow.

When I head into the sun room to get kibble for the outside cats, it’s not unusual for me to see a cat on the hand rail outside. It’s usually Nosencrantz or Potato Beetle. Sometimes it’s Agnoos or Tuxedo Mask. Not this morning!

The Distinguished Guest had her butt parked there this time! I managed to get a picture before opening the doors, at which point she took off. Not far, though. She knows it’s breakfast time!

She is really looking to be a permanent “guest”.

I counted only 13 this morning, though I did see Ghost Baby show up soon after. We were short two orange tabbies. I didn’t see Butterscotch or Nosencrantz this morning, either. It’s not unusual for Butterscotch to be missing, but I usually see Nosencrantz.

Chadiccus came over for pets, and I was happy to see he’s all cleaned up. No sign of the blood that was all over his front, yesterday. Since no cats look injured, I’m hoping it was just from some rodent he caught and ate.

I can see that the cats checked out our winter sowing experiment! The jugs themselves were undisturbed, though, so that’s good.

Once I was done my rounds and back inside, the two deer that come by regularly were soon at the feeding station. Then I spotted one of them in the south yard!

There is a short path along the chimney block planters that has been shoveled, and that’s where she is standing.

Then she made her way around the white lilacs, to the shrine! From the tracks in the snow, they have been checking out the kibble tray fairly regularly. Which is interesting, since there is nothing there they can eat. There are birds that like to steal the kibble, though, and of course the cats are often there, just like at the feeding station, so maybe the deer is associating the presence of birds and cats with food!

Or she’s just curious. :-D

I like how the cat is so chill about the deer coming at it.

Doing my rounds this morning was a bit of a bother. Those high winds from yesterday drifted over many of our paths with hard packed snow. A couple of days from now, we’re supposed to get hit by a storm, with 10-15 cm of snow (4-6 inches).

*sigh* I suppose we should clear out the end of the driveway again, before the plows have to go through.

The Re-Farmer

Cabbages update

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I figured it was a good idea to write a separate post on how Cabbages is doing.

We have been giving her water with a syringe, as dehydration is the biggest danger for her. By the second time we were doing it, she seemed to get what we were doing, and was quite cooperative. We were careful to give her just a little at a time, and she actually seemed to perk up.

She wouldn’t eat the wet cat food. The girls are planning to boil some salmon for her, which will be made into a paste so we can use the syringe to feed her, but for now, getting water into her is the priority.

She seemed a bit stuffed up, so we got her into a steamy bathroom for a while. She got a couple more hydration sessions while in there, too. That done, she was returned to the comfort and warmth of my bed.

I came in to find Beep Beep and Turmeric, grooming her. A little too enthusiastically! I had to move them off of her, every now and then.

Turmeric seemed to decide she needed to be the center of her mom’s attention, though, and kept trying to insert herself between Beep Beep and Cabbages. Meanwhile, Cabbages just lay there, taking it all. Turmeric finally got to be too much for her, though, so she got up and moved to the other end of the bed.

I just took a bit of a break from writing this. My daughter came in, and we hydrated Cabbages again. We got two syringe fulls into her. She is definitely more responsive, and even opened her mouth more for the water.

We don’t want to over do it, of course. The last thing we want is for her to start throwing up again. So far, though, her stomach seems stable.

The poor thing looks so miserable. She hasn’t lost a lot of weight, but she didn’t have a lot of weight to lose in the first place, so she feels all bony now.

I got some more texts from the woman that will be fixing our cats. She let me know that all the photos I sent have been passed on to “all the girls”. I had let her know about Cabbages, and they have been made aware of that, too.

Then I got a text telling me that they have all sorts of wet and dry cat food that’s just sitting there. It needs to be used, so she will pass it on to us. !!! We should be able to meet up, the next time she is in town.

That is so awesome! I knew the organization provided free cat food to their fosters, but I didn’t expect them to have so much extra, they would need to get rid of it, and could offer it to us. I have no idea how much it will be, but every little bit will make things easier on our budget! The cats will be very happy. :-)

Today had warmed up quite a bit. It’s past 9pm and we’re still at only -9C/16F, but it’s been blowing snow all evening. Not a lot of snow is actually falling, but enough is being blown around that I’m glad we didn’t need to go anywhere. I’ve heard the roads are got pretty bad. According to the hourly forecast, we’re supposed to warm up to -2C/28F by 3 am, and stay that warm until 6am! If the driveway isn’t drifted over too badly, I might make a trip into town and get some kitten milk for Cabbages for both nutrition and hydration. We’ll see how Cabbages is doing by tomorrow, though. Poor little thing. She really does seem to have perked up. I am encouraged.

The Re-Farmer

More good news… and some not so good news

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Before I had a chance to head out to feed the outside critters, I got a series of texts from the woman who will be fixing our cats. She was able to book the surgery for January 31st – for both Butterscotch and Nosencrantz!

We will have to isolate them in the sun room the day before, and take out all food and water by 9pm. After surgery, we’ll have to keep them in there during recovery. If they end up needing cones, it’s an extra cost, but I think we still have cones from previous cat treatments that will fit. Though I doubt Butterscotch in particular could handle wearing one!

Meanwhile, she has passed on the information I was able to send her yesterday, and the process of getting cats adopted out has started.

While feeding the outside cats this morning, I only counted 16, but I saw Rosencrantz this time (right in front of the kibble house) and I even saw Ghost Baby, both of whom I haven’t seen in a while. They are doing very well out there.

Inside… well, it’s a different story. We have some weird stuff going on.

From the top down is Beep Beep, Turmeric, Tissue and “grandma”. This was a massive grooming and cuddle session, and both Tissue and Turmeric were acting like they were trying to nurse on “grandma”. Which is funny, because Beep Beep is Turmeric’s mom, and when she was ready to wean her kittens, she was quite abrupt about it.

This picture of feline domestic bliss ended abruptly that evening.

The cats sometimes get testy with each other. That’s to be expected. What happened this time was a full blown fight, with rolling balls of fighting cats, flinging across the dining room floor, into the entry way, and into the basement, before breaking off and cats flew in all directions. By the time we got there, we couldn’t tell who started what.

We got things calmed down, but every now and then, there would be another tussle. As soon as there’s any growling, all the other cats come running to see what’s going on, and the ones that were in fighting mode would just tackle whichever cat happened to be nearby.

Beep Beep is a bad one for that, but she’s been fighting for survival since longer than we’ve been here, so that’s to be expected.

No cats were injured, by the way. Just to reassure!

What wasn’t expected was Turmeric’s response.

She turned into a snarling, screaming, growling beast.

Even when there were no other cats around! One time I heard her start screaming and snarling, I came running, only to find her under the dining table – alone. I did eventually spot another cat in the room, but she was behind a shelf, out of sight, and not bothering Turmeric at all.

We ended up having to isolate her in my office until she calmed down, but when we let her out, she was soon in another fight, then hid under a basement step, needing much persuasion to get her out.

So for the past few days, we’ve had her in my office. Every now and then, we’d let her out, and she’d start snarling. Usually at the tuxedos, for some reason. We would bring other cats in, and mostly she would be fine. This morning, I even let Layendecker in, whom she had been growling at before, and there was no problem. But as soon as we let her out of the room, she’s snarling again.

Who knew such a big noise could come out of such a small cat!

I don’t know what’s going on with her.

But I’m less worried about her than I am about Cabbages.

Cabbages is one of the cats that Turmeric is getting along with just fine, so we brought her in for company. That and she was really missing my bed.

Something is wrong with her.

She’s completely quiet. She’s hardly eating or drinking. For a while, she was throwing up several times a day – a couple of days ago, I had to wash my bedding three times because of that, but she hasn’t thrown up since. She moves from soft spot to soft spot, and that’s it. We’ve kept the hard sided carrier in here, with a soft towel inside, and I’ll often find her in there. Other times, I’ll find her sitting at the water bowl, just… sitting. I’ve seen her using the litter, at least. She has shown no interest in even leaving the room, unlike the other cats, who have been wanting to come in and out. As I write this, she has just come over to the food and water bowls, but is just… sitting. Not eating or drinking.

I mentioned it this morning to the lady that will be fixing our cats, and the first thing she asked if if Cabbages was sneezing or had diarrhea. It was a no on both. She recommended giving her some cooked fish for the nutrition boost, but without getting blood work done, there’s no way to know what’s going on. And the earliest we can afford to bring her in to be checked is at the end of the month. I’m concerned about dehydration and, being a small cat to begin with, the weight loss is an issue, too.

We are quite concerned.

I am considering engaging the help of a daughter or two, and trying to give her water through a syringe.

The Re-Farmer