i was hoping that when grace gave birth....
Carol · Jul. 30, 2012
she would do it in the middle of the night when she alone would bear the entire responsibility. i think that just by our human presence, we can unintentionally mess things up for them. i don't know if onesy and twosey did well because no one was here when they were born and gracie felt free to do what just came naturally but when threesey came..suddenly, we were present and it screwed up the natural flow for grace. or is there something wrong with threesey and so grace decided to let her slip away.
in any case. when threesey was born there was a audience and gracie rejected th babe. i made the decision to intrevene and between janice and i, we held threesey onto a nipple for about an hour so she could nurse. it made her stronger, but not stong enough..she still could not get up and move like the others.
as soon as we left her...gracie moved away and rejected her again. now threesey was strong enough to cry her protest but not strong enough to find her way back to mom. and if gracie decided not to accept her after we left..her death, because of the milk we made sure she had, was going to be prolonged.
i checked her a couple of hours later, gracie had buried threesey in a pile of hay and she had moved herself and the other babes farther away.
i did not sleep well last night...i wanted to go and get that babe, wrap her up warmly, hold her and try to feed her glucose water to get her thru the night until i could get to the vets and pick up some formula for her.
that is what rescuers do...we "save."
but there is a moral issue sometimes as well...what if they are not meant to be saved? threesey will have to survive in this life and she will need a great deal of strength...and four functioning legs. i cannot wave a magic wand for her and make anything that is wrong with her suddenly ok. if she is just weak...maybe i can help her be stronger, but if she can't stand up and walk, i can't give her new legs.
and so i left her, to cry alone in that pile of hay.
i know others would have done differently, they would have at least tried to force her to live. i don't know the right of this and so i decided to let gracie decide what was best for her little innocent babe.
i hope this was right for her, i am so sorry threesey.
I have a 2 year old cat the has no front legs, her mother ate them at birth and then pushed the kitten out of the kennel, she was found cold on the floor. Someone with good intentions revived her bottle fed her for several weeks. She gets around alright but I don't think she's happy. It takes her twice as long to get everywhere and she's afraid of everything. I'm sure having your mother eat you at birth does something to your emotional sate. Personally if I had been there I would like to think I would've let nature take it's course, but I wasn't so now I have a cat I love, even though she's an odd duck but I wonder about her quality of life.........