Raven
Litter number: 49
Kitten number: 207
Gender: f
Color: brown tabby + white
was a brown tabby with white markings, and the only female among the Superbowlers litter. While all four kittens arrived at 50K with life-threatening URIs, Raven didn't stand out as the weakest. She was as energetic as Dorito and bigger and stronger than Bud.
But Raven seemed much weaker on day two, and her weight loss and resistance to bottle-feeding was the impetus for us to start tube-feeding the whole litter. Tube-feeding every three hours (except overnight) enabled all four kittens to regain the weight they'd lost, but Raven alarmed us when she started "gator-breathing" on day two, opening her jaws wide to inhale and then snapping them shut between breaths. I'd first seen this behavior from the doomed Bottle Caps brothers.
The gator-breathing again proved prophetic. Later on day two we found Raven wandering outside the nest. We returned her and made it harder to escape. She remained restless. On day three she stopped gaining weight, but her breathing seemed to have improved a little. But she became inactive and we found her sleeping in positions that made her look dead. She died later on day three, leading the way for her brothers.
Arrival date: 1/27/2013
Departure date: 1/29/2013
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