Hannah Shaw recently found two, nearly lifeless, kittens underneath an oil painting. They had been abandoned by their mother, who was also practically a kitten, and were holding on for dear life.
Hannah received a phone call from a woman who owns an art studio. The woman feeds the community cats and realized that one of them had given birth underneath an oil painting and left. Sadly, there had been a blizzard in the area, and the kittens were absolutely freezing by the time she discovered them.
Hannah, a cat rescuer, rushed to the studio to help save the kittens and was in absolute shock as to how cold the two small kittens were. They were basically frozen. Not to mention, they were still wet from the birth and hadn’t had a drop of milk.
Hannah, aka The Kitten Lady, cradled the hours-old kittens in her lap, trying desperately to warm them up. Their little ears almost frozen stiff.
Time goes by, and Hannah continues to warm them as best as she can. She also does her best to clean all of the afterbirth that was left on their bodies. As she does this, the tiny little kittens slowly start to move around and show hopeful signs of life.
Knowing that the newborn kitties hadn’t had an ounce of nutrition since they were born, feeding them was going to be a necessity. The challenge, however, was that Hannah was unable to feed them until their core body temperatures rose to a healthy level.
A couple of hours after their rescue, Hannah attempted to feed the kittens, but without a mother cat’s guidance and milk, they were unsure of how to eat or what it was.
Leaving the studio, Hannah brought the two kittens, still clinging to life, back to her home where she placed them in an incubator. The incubator stays at a temperature of 90 degrees with a humidity of around 40%. It basically acts as an ICU unit for the newborn cats.
Now that they were ‘home,’ they were given names – Mink and Badger. Badger weighed in at around 91 grams, while Mink was just 71 grams – a very dangerous weight for both kitties, but especially Mink. She attempted another feeding using a diluted mixture of Pedialyte and Bene-Bac.
Since the kittens were premature, she was unable to continue feeding them with a syringe and had to resort to tube feeding. However, despite all of her efforts – Mink passed away.
Hannah expresses that many people think that rescuing and working with cats is always ‘cute.’ She wants people to know that although there is a lot of ‘cuteness’ involved, there is nothing cute about what these poor kittens had to go through and that it could have been prevented if their mother had been spayed.
On April 1st, Badger turned 10 days old, and Hannah shared a message with fans and supporters on Facebook.
“I’m completely enamored with this little dude. He’s doing great, but is definitely a late bloomer. He’s the weight and size of a 10 day old, but has the look of a kitten half his age! Umbilical cord is still hangin on (usually falls off at 5 days) and eyes are still totally closed (usually start opening at 8-9 days.) Slow and steady wins the race, so no rush here!”
And on April 3rd, we got an even cuter update.
“A little prince.”
Mink and Badger’s story is a reminder to have your pets spayed and neutered. Watch their full rescue video below. We wish Badger a happy and long life.
