First Bite

Coke's almost 5 weeks old so I thought it's time to slowly introduce him to solid food. Went to the pet shop for recommendations and bought Royal Canin's Babycat product, as the biscuits are really tiny (it's so cute!) in size than normal dry cat food to make it easier for baby kittens to feed on. The price may vary a little between pet stores around KL I guess, but I got the 400g package for RM19.50. I bought the smallest packet to try it out first and see if Coke takes a liking to it....

And guess what? I didn't even need to persuade him to eat the biscuits! After feeding him some milk I took the bottle away and poured out the biscuits and he just dove right in! So cute! I guess Coke couldn't wait to use his teeth to crunch on something finally.

I'm planning to keep him on the milk formula still, but not as much as before. Probably once he's about 10-12 weeks old I'll see if I can take the milk away and start giving him canned food along with the dry biscuits. We'll see.

Obsession!

I don't know if it's related to Coke growing teeth, or if it's just a weird phase, but Coke's suddenly developed this obsession to really clamp down on the teat of the bottle whilst feeding on his milk. He'll drink the milk like normal until the bottle's about half finished, and then he'll grab it with his paws and clamps down with his mouth and just goes crazy hahaha. I tried prying it away from him when he first started doing it, but he'll just run after the bottle again so I end up letting him do it until he's bored and lets the bottle go by himself. It amuses me. :D

Watch it for yourselves!

Strength to Climb

I'm starting to let Coke roam around the house on its own for a few days now, training him to be less skittish and encourage curiosity. And to my surprise, just tonight, I came out of my room to find him ON the sofa! Yep... he climbed it on his own! Must've been a major feat for someone so tiny hehe.

Coke Litter

A milestone! Baby Coke learns how to use the kitty litter (slightly modified, used a shoebox instead of the normal litter tray because it's too big for Coke to climb in and out of).

Coke drinks Milk

Coke is drinking milk! Yeay! I had quite a sleepless night last night as the kitten would wake up meowing for food every few hours. He (well... I'm still unsure about the gender, but I'll just use 'he' for now) is starting to learn to drink from the bottle now. We still need to coax him a bit to bite the teat but once he has it in his mouth, he suckles fine.

More pics from this afternoon...

The Emergency Adoption

I'm starting this blog to capture the stories of a tiny, furry little newcomer to my daily life - a 2-week old abandoned kitten whom I've decided to name Coca Fandango, nicknamed Coke (will explain the name later!).

I own a cafe in Damansara Perdana, and there's always been this stray cat hanging around the shop since the first day I took over operations from the cafe's previous owner. We call that cat, an adult female, Scaramouche. She always sleeps outside the cafe and lays claim on the territory... demanding food whenever she's hungry, and trying to sneak in to sleep inside the warmth of the cafe everytime a customer opens the front door.

She gave birth to a kitten on the 26th of September, a few days before Hari Raya. We put up a box for her, and she seemed alright mothering her newborn, so we left her to it.

On Friday the 10th of October, Scaramouche went missing. We didn't see her anywhere, and she didn't even come to claim her lunch and dinner meals as she usually does. Yesterday, whilst it was raining outside, we could hear the crying of her kitten just outside the cafe. So when nightfall came and still there was no sign of Scaramouche running to her baby's aid, I went outside to search for the kitten, whom I found shivering and wet in a drain by the bush to the side of my cafe.

I took the little furball inside, got it dry, and started thinking... what do I do with a baby kitten?! I've had countless cats in my care, but never had to start looking after one without its mom when it's just 2-weeks old. After a bit of Googling (thank god for the Internet and readily-available source of information), I found out that I should not feed the kitten cow's milk, as they're not able to digest it. A quick check at the time told me I still had about 20 minutes before the nearest pet store closed, so I rushed to my car, drove to the store, and managed to run in and make my purchase before the cash registers were closed for the night.

Armed with a kitten bottle feeder and a tub of specially-formulated kitten milk replacement, I headed back to the cafe to the beginning of a new role - surrogate mother to the kitten.

The kitten won't take the bottle at first, I guess it didn't know how to do so. I force fed it some formula still, and decided to take it home with me, knowing that it would mean a sleepless night ahead.

And so, without a proper pet carrier around, my friend Muna suggested that I put the kitten in one of our empty Coca-Cola carton boxes, hence the name Coke popped up. And since the mom and dad (another stray cat who hangs about our cafe alot) are named Scaramouche and Galileo Figaro respectively, I decided to honor the Bohemian Rhapsody-themed family naming convention by adding Fandango as the kitten's second name.

And so, fellow readers... I present to you, Coca Fandango :)

The Coca-Cola carton that became Coke's makeshift home last night :

Feeding Coke at 3am, whilst Tobek (my family cat) looks on


Curious Tobek taking a closer sniff and look, no doubt wondering, "that's not MY offspring, is it??"



Tobek was a good boy the entire night, standing guard and watching everytime I fed Coke, but never making a fuss about it.

So, wish me luck with raising this poor, motherless, furry Coke into a healthy bouncing cat. Will update more as we go along!