We found a litter of feral kittens under our neighbor's metal shed about three days ago. They were obviously newborn, as their umbilical cords and even a couple of placentas were still attached. There were six of them total, but only one was still alive. It looks like the mother must have been extremely inexperienced, because she didn't clean them or sever the cords, and after an entire day's worth of watching, she never came back. There was some rather icky diarrhea in the "nest" and all over the kittens, so I'm thinking that maybe Mom is/was sick? Anyway, we buried the five that didn't make it, and brought the last little one into the house yesterday evening.
It's a little girl, solid grey with lovely silver ticking. We have a Momma cat with a litter of 8-week-old kittens, so we were hoping that maybe she'd adopt this one and feed it. So far, the result is pretty neutral. She isn't aggressive toward the kitten, and she will occasionally lie still long enough for the newborn to eat for 10-15 minutes (especially if she happens to be asleep when we place the kitten with her) but she doesn't respond to its cries, she's only made a couple of half-hearted attempts to clean it/stimulate it to eliminate, and she really seems pretty uninterested in it. We've basically been following her around, and whenever we see her settle down to nap (or allow the older kittens to nurse, as she sometimes does) we place the newborn with her. So far, she's fed it maybe four times, but never for very long. We've been doing the cleaning/snuggling/help with elimination parts ourselves.
Has anybody else ever gotten a Momma cat to accept a foster kitten? Is there something we could do to help the process along? We're going to the store to get some KMR and a bottle, just in case, because although the newborn seems okay right now, she's going to get dehydrated if the only time she gets to eat is for a few minutes when we can catch Lily napping.
Obligatory pics of the orphan--we're calling her "Silver" right now. The slightly-wet spot on her back is from the drop of Frontline we put on her earlier, to get rid of the fleas she was covered in when we brought her in:
Edit: Clarified title of thread. :)