Questions Regarding My Few-Week-Old Orphan Kitten

Hello,

This is going to be a pretty long story, because I want to get in all the facts and make sure I’m doing everything correctly. I apologize in advance if anything’s confusing.
Two days ago, my uncle said that he found a few-week-old kitten in a dairy barn. He was having some trouble caring for it, so my sister and I offered to take it until it was weaned. Even though I’ve researched this topic excessively, and I’m pretty well-read on how to do it, this is my first physical experience raising an un-weaned kitten.
I know it isn’t crucial to know what he looks like, but I may as well mention it. From what I can tell, it’s a “he.” He’s black and white, he appears to be long-haired, and he’s a polydactyl on both front paws (at first we thought his paws were splayed or smashed, but he just has extra toes!) Since I can neither remember nor pronounce the actual name my uncle gave him, we call him Panda for short. I think his name is Patandishi, or something like that, but I keep mispronouncing it as Pandemonium. Anyway, we call him Panda.
My uncle brought Panda to me yesterday. He said he thought Panda was dead this morning, but then he perked up all of a sudden. The tops of the kitten’s toes were almost hairless, and there was dried blood on his feet. He had been bleeding out of his nose as well, so there was dried blood on his face too. There was some gunk surrounding his eyes, which were still closed. The worst thing of all were his tale and anal region; my uncle thinks a cow must have stepped on that part of him or something. All of the fur and skin is scraped off of his upper tail and his rectum. He had some strange clumps of something stuck to the wound… I thought it was cat feces–his feces, maybe, but I know he isn’t old enough to eliminate on his own. My uncle said Panda hadn’t eaten for forty-eight hours before he came to me.
Anyway, my sister and I spent the entire afternoon trying to feed him (he wouldn’t take the bottle, but he would suck kitten formula from my finger), and cleaning the blood off of him.
His tail still looks nasty, but we cleaned it and my uncle put hydrogen peroxide on it, and it doesn’t seem like it’s getting infected. Part of me wonders if the nerves were destroyed, because he never moves his tail. He doesn’t even seem to notice it…almost as though it wasn’t there, and he doesn’t seem at all effected when I clean it or move the tail. I’m not too worried about it, because I know that a veterinarian can take the tail off if it threatens Panda’s life.
Now that we’ve cleaned all of the blood off of Panda, he looks a lot better. He’s clean, his fur is silky-soft, and he doesn’t seem to have any sort of fleas or mites or anything. He doesn’t have any abscesses or discharge coming from his nostrils or ears. As we were cleaning him, we witnessed him open his eyes for the very first time, which was absolutely miraculous. His eyes look a little strange, but I’ve read that it takes a few days for them to fully open, so I’m not too worried about them. He seems to be able to see quite clearly. He has tiny little nub-teeth, and he’s just beginning to stagger about and explore. I think he’s about two or three weeks old.
We’ve been feeding him PetAg Milk Replacer Plus for kittens every few hours, but he doesn’t seem to take much in. I’m very careful when I’m feeding him. When I’m ready to feed him, I heat the bottle under hot running water until the formula is warm, and I dab a little on my wrist to make sure. Then I take Panda and place him on a towel on the floor or on my lap. I let him wander around a bit, and he’s usually happy with just a little exploration before he’s ready to go back to sleep. I make sure he’s posed the way he would be if he was nursing from his mother. He doesn’t take the bottle, however. Sometimes I have to gently pry his mouth open and put the nipple in, and he struggles. He’s very quiet generally, but he backs away and meows if I try and give him the formula. He also attempts to place his claws on my hand, but I think he’s trying to knead the way he would do to his mama when he nurses. I’ve tried stroking him the way the mother would to stimulate the suckling reflex, and it sometimes works, but he doesn’t seem to like the bottle in his mouth or the formula at all. I manage to get in a little at frequent feedings, but he hasn’t had nearly as much as I’ve read he should have. I always burp him afterwards (he doesn’t always burp, but he seldom takes anything in anyway.)
I’m afraid he might waste away. I want to weigh him to monitor his growth, but I don’t have a device with which I can weigh him, and I don’t have access to a store. I can feel his tiny bones a little more than I think I’m supposed to.
Part of me is afraid to feed him because I’ve read so much about aspiration. People warn never to squeeze the bottle when the kitten is drinking because too much will come out at once. I didn’t know that, however, and I squeezed it very, very, very gently. I’m not too, too worried about that, because the way I squeezed it only a few drops can really come out, and Panda doesn’t let me keep a bottle in his mouth long enough to get too much. I hold him in the correct position when I feed him, too.
After every feeding, I help him “eliminate.” There haven’t been any cat feces yet, but he urinates very nicely. I have a specific towel, covered in disposable paper towels, that I place him on for elimination. Then I put on plastic gloves and take a paper towel and just stroke him all over. He purrs like a maniac during elimination time, and he always rolls over on his back and bats at my free hand. With my other hand, I use the paper towel I’m holding to soak up the urine. It’s going very well.
Panda seems alert, but not spazmatic. He seems to recognize when it’s elimination time, because he always lifts up his tiny head and stares at me as I’m putting the gloves on. He’s just beginning to walk around, but he shakes a lot when he walks. I attributed it to the unsteadiness a baby has when he’s just learning to walk around, but I’m also worried that he might be too cold or have hypoglycemia. He doesn’t seem listless, though, or depressed. Apart from how quiet he is, and the fact that he doesn’t eat much, he seems to act just like a kitten his age is supposed to act. I do think he’s cold, because he often seeks out my hands and rests underneath them or beside them.
I have trouble keeping my room warm. In the daytime, the room is very warm, but at night it grows cold. Panda lives in a box underneath a lovely, sunny window. He has a heating pad that keeps the entire box at a moderate temperature, and then towels over that. In the corner of his box (and this may sound strange) I gave him a potato. It isn’t for him to eat. I just microwaved it, wrapped it in paper towels, and sort of smashed it a bit to soften it, and he sleeps near it or on it. I figured it would sort of emulate the warmth of a littermate. I know he’s cold, because he shivers, and the thermometer (which is relatively inaccurate) says he’s a few degrees low. So, it’s nothing too serious, and I warm him up a bit before I feed him.
He’s responsive to my voice, hands, and face, and he seems alert when he’s awake. Panda sleeps most of the day (as kittens do). I usually wake him for meals, but sometimes I just let him sleep. I figure when he’s actually hungry, he’ll wake up. He purrs really loudly when I hold him, pet him, or clean him. I use wipes and paper towels to emulate the mama-kitty’s tongue. I give him a good cleaning after almost every meal in that manner, and he purrs like crazy. I think that if there was something truly wrong with him, he wouldn’t be so alert and he wouldn’t purr so much.
The three things that worry me:
#1. He doesn’t eat willingly. He doesn’t meow when he’s hungry–only when I’m trying to feed him. I don’t have any Karo syrup, and I’ve read that honey is bad for kittens.
#2. He’s not cold to the touch, but I’d like his temperature to be higher. He shakes sometimes when I take him out at night and early morning, but he warms easily. I want to find a way to keep his environment warmer at night, and the heater in my room really dries it out. I know kittens need a touch of humidity in their environment.
#3. He makes odd, constant little noises (at intervals) that sound sort of like tiny bubbles popping. I wonder…do you think they’re hiccups or little burps?
I want to take him to the vet just for a check-up, but I’m suffering from a severe monetary problem so that I literally cannot afford it.
Anyway… How am I doing? I’ve researched this insanely, so I’m pretty confident, but I’d just like the input of more experienced kitten-raisers. Does anyone have any advice about the three things that are worrying me?
Thank you very much!