Marty, a compassionate woman from Las Vegas, discovered three newborn kittens a week ago. They were in the bushes, chilling, and the mother cat was nowhere to be seen.
One of the neighbors asked for help from Nikki Martinez, an experienced animal advocate.
“Marty was out on a stroll with her dogs when one of them became quite interested in the nearby shrubs. “She followed and discovered three newborn kittens that were still bound by the umbilical cord,” Nikki explains.
Nikki was out of town at the time, but she gave the woman instructions on how to care for the infants until she returned the next day. Marty dashed to the supermarket to get up newborn kitten chow and other necessities. She started feeding the kittens when she got home, and the next morning she took them to work with her to give them a bottle every couple of hours.
“It was a chilly night, and when she found them, they were quite cold and rigid.”
Nikki took the babies, and then they combed the area in the hope that a cat mother would be found, but she was gone. Then Nikki contacted Trap Neuter Return, a stray cat rescue group from the east side of Las Vegas.
The kittens looked weak, they were born no more than 24 hours ago. “They are not getting mother’s milk, which is necessary for immunity. It’s a miracle they’re still alive,” says Nikki.
“As long as it benefits them, I’m willing to give them all I have.”
Nikki constructed a cozy bed with numerous heat sources to keep the children warm at all times and began feeding them every two hours. Cookie, Potato, and Bun are the names given to the fur balls.
On the third day of life, the bun, the tiniest of the brood, weighed just 90 g. She abruptly stopped eating, despite the fact that the rest of the group was gaining muscle and strength. The Bun, on the other hand, could not be coerced into taking even a little bite of food.
“I tried till 2 a.m. to feed her, but it was futile. Nikki recounts, “My heart was hurting and I felt so powerless.”
A kitten of this age cannot go without food for long. Nikki and her husband were well aware that they needed to figure out a means to feed the kid. They connected her up to artificial electricity the next morning.
Nikki’s spouse is a nurse with certification in the neonatal critical care unit (humans). Both husband and wife went to veterinary school.
Fortunately, they were able to resurrect Bun.
After all these emergency measures, the kitten went on the mend.
“I cried with happiness, and partly because I was wildly exhausted. The bun gained the missing weight and began to eat without a tube, ”recalls Nikki.
