Empress of Mars: Undisputed @zebratron2084@awoo.space

fwiw, and it's worth a lot, sugarfoot's month-old kittens (tentatively Olivia and Snowshoe) are doing great

biggest stress source there is anklescratching and that's just freakin adorable

well, that and we have to figure out how to wean them over the next week and PRAY sugarfoot toilet trains them properly, but how much stress could that possibly be? ^______^

haha i haven't eaten in about 40 hours

that's a first

i need coffee, too

latest:

the good news: someone can take them and at least have a look at them

the bad news: ...in four hours.

Not looking good. Turns out all the rescue opportunities we were looking at are either kill shelters or full up after all. We have ONE last-ditch effort, and then we're gonna let the SPCA take them and put them out of their misery.

Peggy is devastated. Please be extra kind to her. I'm still trying not to be angry at the people who picked at her decisions without knowing the full context.

i'm so exhausted

@Djinnanigans@dragon.style Thank you so much, darlin'. I have a horrible pessimistic feeling that we're just prolonging everybody's discomfort this way, but... we couldn't not try, especially once we found a shelter that might actually be able to help.

@raye @anthracite sadly it is the only option available for a carless couple at 10:30 pm in mid-city new orleans. :( we are going by the advice of a kitten rescue site which is saying, basically, it's better than nothing. at this point they basically just need to get enough food to survive the night.

also anthracite knows not a damn thing about cooking and got evaporated milk confused with condensed in her stress :) we have evaporated milk.

We now have a syringe. Peg is trying to feed with mixed success. They're cold but I've got the heat cranked way up in the front room.

Meanwhile Sugarfoot has been understandably SUPER stressed and hissy, so I've chilling out with her in the next room with some Internet birdsong that is protecting her from the absolutely heartbreaking kitten noises coming from the next room.

Whatever happens, I am so fucking proud of my dragon.

We might have gotten a few droplets of evaporated milk into them, not much more. Peg is biking to CVS, in the rain, to try to get a syringe.

They are noisy. It's heartbreaking but it's also encouraging me to hope that they're not ready to give up yet.

Just hang in there another 10 hours, little critters. If you can do that for us, maybe there's some hope.

They're not taking anything. Peg is now attempting milk-soaked paper towel squares.

We have gone into heroic measures. The best thing we could find for feeding at 10 pm with no car is condensed milk, and we're feeding them with a series of improvised attempt at nipples, ranging from plastic gloves to ball point pens.

Nobody can tell us we didn't try. I know cow's milk isn't ideal for them, but it at least gives them a chance to get through the night.

THE GOOD NEWS: WE FOUND AN SPCA OFFICE WITH ROOM

THE BAD NEWS: they can't be here until 9 am.

We looked up emergency kitten formula and don't have any of the ingredients.

pray to bast RIGHT NOW

we may have found someone who can help

@zetasyanthis @Doephin @anthracite And just to make sure we'd done everything we can, Anthracite called three 24-hour vets just now. They all referred us to shelters, none of which will be open until it's too late. :( She's still trying.

@zetasyanthis @Doephin @anthracite If it's any further reassurance, we are DEFINITELY getting everybody fixed as soon as is financially and logistically feasible. We are not gonna let this happen on our watch again.

@zetasyanthis @Doephin @anthracite Yeah. We're gonna be pretty fucked up by this for a while. It's absolutely not fair. There should be someone out there for these little guys. We're just out of ideas that wouldn't involve turning our lives upside-down completely and, from what we've heard from friends with wildlife rehab experience, wouldn't probably still end in heartbreak.

Ultimately, the decision not to bottle-feed hinged on the fact we have two very healthy and happy bumblers in the next room who are really gonna need a lot of love and attention in the near future. I can't bring myself to risk failing them *too* by taking on more than we can possibly shoulder.

The worst part is that yeah, there is always something more that can be done. We are too shellshocked and financially depleted for heroic measures right now. So... yeah. Crying ourselves to sleep. *hug*

@zetasyanthis @Doephin @anthracite Thank you for understanding. This has been really heartbreaking for us and if there were a clear path to rescuing them, believe us, we've promised each other we'd be on it.

For further context, these aren't even our cats. These are the local ferals. We only ever expected to be feeding them. We have ZERO cat ownership experience. Our neighbor used to take them in when they needed it, but she suddenly moved away. We've already done a backbreaking amount for their siblings, including taking in two OTHER kittens just last months.

We're making plans to get them all fixed as fast as we can, but we're up to EIGHT cats not including these poor babies. We are stretched to our absolute limit already. If this were Cat Crisis #1 for us, I'd be real damn tempted to pick up a bottle and start feeding them myself, but we're already at capacity in every conceivable way. ;__;

@Phorm It's a good idea but we tried that too. She showed no interest and got really stressed out and hissy.

We've put them out in the shed with the door open and some food. It's a last-ditch hope that Shadow was just getting stressed out by being indoors and will change her heart.

I already had to explain this to somebody and I hope I don't have to explain it to anyone else: New Orleans's rescue services are utterly slammed. There was nobody who could help us. Please don't compound our grief by asking us. This was the hardest thing we've ever had to do.

The only other option we can think of is to bottlefeed, and that's just not feasible. We don't have the ability or resources. Other than that, it's "panicky post to Reddit in hopes someone qualified can take in three kittens on extremely short notice." But I've never seen any such thread that didn't end up in "we'd love to help, everybody's slammed."

If anybody else does have any last-minute suggestions, please don't hesitate to tell.us. If you know someone in the area who is willing to take in three kittens in crisis IMMEDIATELY, this would be a real good time to let us know.

@Doephin @zetasyanthis @anthracite If it gives you any sense of proportion here, the most recent animal intake on the main New Orleans animal rescue site is from 2017.