Meet our mighty little friend, Meep! Meep is one of 87 kittens that came from one property in Douglas County. Yes, you read that correctly – 87 kittens. The property where these cats were living changed owners and unfortunately the new owners threatened the safety of the animals if left on the property. Fearing the worst, a good Samaritan rounded up all the cats he could find and brought them to us at Lawrence Humane in four trips. 

Meep was one of 20 kittens brought in during the third trip. She had four littermates, but was markedly smaller than her siblings. At four weeks old, Meep should have weighed one pound, but she came in weighing less than half a pound, tiny and frail. After a thorough examination, Lawrence Humane staff made the decision to separate her from her siblings so that she could have individualized attention and not have to compete for food with kittens twice her size. Unfortunately, no matter what we tried, Meep just couldn’t gain any weight. Our clinic staff provided every resource possible – dewormer, vaccines, a fecal test, and a variety of medicines and antibiotics. Because kittens can’t regulate their own body temperature, we kept Meep on a heating pad at all times. And while her littermates were eating dry kibble and thriving in foster care, Meep couldn’t gain an ounce even with us syringe feeding her every two hours, including through the night! 

Finally, through persistence and some outside-the-box thinking, Meep turned a corner. Lawrence Humane is lucky to have three kitten incubators and even though they’re intended for kittens much younger than Meep, because her body was so underdeveloped, putting her in an incubator and having constant climate control proved to be a game-changer. 

Suddenly, little Meep began to eat for longer periods of time and started to gain weight. She began to roll around, groom herself, and display signs of kitten joy! Eventually, Meep’s body stabilized enough to not need an incubator. I’m so happy to say that Meep is now a very active 8-week old kitten and weighs a healthy 1.7 pounds!

A generous Lawrence Humane supporter has offered to match all gifts of $100 or greater, made between now and August 31, up to $5,000! This means that your donation will be doubled and will go twice as far in helping us make sure that kittens like Meep are provided every possible resource so that they can live and find loving homes.