Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to all my friends - thank you so much for taking the time to keep up with my blog (and especially thank you if you post a comment, I love it when I get comments)

Hopefully 2012 will be kind to all of us and will only bring good things to all.

We had a very unexpected early Christmas present -- on the evening of 23rd December Peter went out to shut the hens in the hen house but they wouldn't go in, so he called me to come and help. Lo and behold there was a kitten curled up fast asleep in the straw in there! He wouldn't move so I had to reach in and take him out - it wasn't til afterwards that I thought 'was that such a good idea?' but he just let me pick him up and didn't bite or scratch at all.

We put him in the shed and settled him in there with a bowl of catfood and a bed - and he's been living in the shed ever since! Initially I thought he was a 'she' and had come up with the name 'Evie' - the name has stuck but he's now Mr. Evie, to make it sound manly enough!!

He was in a truly AWFUL state; it really breaks my heart to think of all the neglected, stray cats here and how they would have such a better quality of life with just a little help. But at least we can make a difference for Mr. Evie (and our other four cats were all strays too) - though I think it's going to be a bit of a long journey getting him back to health.

As it was so close to Christmas when we found him the vets were all closed so Peter got some antibiotics from the chemists as his mouth is in a horrid mess - his breath stinks to high-heavens. I had a look in his mouth and nearly every tooth is decayed or covered in plaque - I was even able to take one of them out myself just using the tweezers.

We took him to the vet a couple of days ago and the vet was quite concerned about the state of him too, he didn't want to give any more antibiotics at the moment but gave us a worm tablet for him and a liquid tonic and said to try and feed him up and give him lots of TLC and to hope for the best...

He was doing ok, but yesterday he took a turn for the worse and I really thought we were going to lose him - he wouldn't touch any food so I started to syringe feed him; he was so weak that I thought he would die soon, but luckily he made it through the night and is slightly stronger today, though I am still syringe feeding him.

He's purring at least and is walking again (yesterday he would just flop on the floor and wouldn't walk); fingers crossed he will make it.

Surpringly, the vet said that he isn't a kitten at all, he's a very small cat!! I think that would explain how his teeth are SO bad (they are truly horrid, I feel so sorry for him with all that poison/infection going on in his little mouth)

I know I don't really have a great deal of 'followers' on this blog but I'm having a 10% off sale in my Etsy shop right now, to try and raise the extra money for the vet bills -- you need to put coupon code VETBILLSALE in the box at the check-out and it will knock off the 10% off automatically.

If you could 'share' this that would be wonderful - I'm not sure how big the bills are going to be but we are going to take him to another vet next week - I really am keen to get some of his other teeth taken out or cleaned (though I think they are beyond cleaning as an option) so that he can start feeding properly and put on some weight...but I don't know if he is strong enough to stand an anesthetic just yet...and then once he's up to it we'll be getting him neutered.