Sammy and her kids

Sammy is the semi-feral momma cat that was trapped in my own feeding station a few weeks ago, and very quickly afterwards had a litter of kittens in my fostering room. She gave birth to five kittens, but one died at birth. Despite my efforts to support her, two more kittens died after that. Sammy's remaining kittens are now about 11 days old.
After the last two kittens died, I moved her kittens over to Chika, who was also being fostered in my nursery with her two kittens. She accepted Peanut (grey tabby) and Jellybean (orange tabby), and nursed them along for a few days. Yesterday I put Jellybean back with Sammy, as he is twice the size of his sibling, and she clearly missed her babies. She hasn't left him for a second since then, and he is doing great.

My greatest fear this week has been that Peanut would get pushed out of the way in the nest by Chika's rapidly growing kids, along with a new arrival that Chika also adopted. Tonight, I went down to check on them and it had happened. Peanut was on the edge of the nest, cold, and hungry. I took him/her out, and warmed them up on a heating pad and tried to feed a bottle of formula. Peanut took a little of it, and did liven up a bit. However, I still wasn't thrilled with the improvement. So, I took a gamble and put Peanut back with Sammy. And she started nursing him!!!

I'll be honest, I'm not still convinced that Peanut is going to make it. He/she is half the size of orange Jellybean, and he has a lame back leg. But I am going to fight my hardest to make it happen.

-Sarah