As I first mentioned three days ago, when I took Socks' younger kitten -- Smokey -- out of the birthing box in order to show him to a friend, I discovered that one of his eyes was completely sealed shut by hardened mucus. Online research led me to believe that Smokey might be afflicted with conjunctivitis. So, for the past three days I have been gently removing the mucus from his eye using soft gauze and sterilized warm water, just hoping that whatever it is, it might clear up on its own.
That was wishful thinking. With no apparent improvement after three days, I decided that medical attention would be required. However, before paying a visit to the pet store to pick up some eye drops, I decided to conduct some more online research in order to determine if there might possibly be a home remedy for kitten conjunctivitis.
This morning at 7:45 AM I applied a home remedy that was recommended by a number of people who claimed amazing results in a very short amount of time, ranging from a few hours, to a few days at best. Being the skeptic that I am, and not wanting to promote something on this blog before I am convinced that it actually works, I am not going to share the remedy that I am trying out quite yet. If it truly works -- and I hope that it does -- you can be sure that I will let everyone know about it as soon as possible; probably within a few days at best.
In other cat and kitten news, later this evening Socks' two kittens -- Smokey and Bandit -- will be a full two weeks old. While their eye color has been dark up until now, as you can see by the above photo of Bandit, they are now beginning to turn blue, which is usually what occurs with newborn kittens. It won't be until a few months from now when they begin to acquire their adult eye color, which I assume will probably be yellow.
While Smokey and Bandit can't walk steadily yet, I suspect that they will begin doing so within a matter of a few days or a week at best; the reason being that now that they are able to actually see their mother, they have both gone to the edge of the birthing box and peered out of the flap that I cut into the end of it. I suspect that if Socks didn't actually go into the birthing box at that point to nurse them, they would probably tumble right out of the box, even though the lip of the flap is situated a few inches above the bottom of the box. In fact, Bandit almost tumbled out this morning.
Well, that is all the cat and kitten news for now. I'll keep you posted.
