(Sorry in advance for the wall of text and repeating if I do any)
Sparing some fairly grotesque details, I was at a milk barn with someone who needed to ask some questions on whatever and a miss had come in with a TERRIBLY injured kitten. The thought and image of it still churns my stomach a bit so, in short, it seemed as if either something very heavy had fallen on his right front leg or a calf may have stepped on him. They were ready to put the kitten out but I could not bear it. They surrendered the little one over to me and I had to make quick use of some gauze and surgical tape at home. It was/is either a terrible break in his bone or something I can’t tell. The wound was very much an open one but I don’t recall seeing any bone except for a detached dewclaw.
Two days of tending to the kitten with evaporated canned milk, no vets open or shelters, and a lot of kitten bites, the little one’s chance to make it was slim. I called vets, when they finally opened, and an amputation was too far out of reach in costs at the time with every cent of my money already having a place in necessities. I took him back to the milk barn to see if he had any medicines and such. He was very willing to make an attempt to “remove the dead bit.” That is also something I wont describe but if it wasn’t done he would have gotten worse. The man gave me some non-stick bandages they use on the cows and some ointment (as well as some sort of surgical equipment cleaner to put on the baby’s arm as a disinfectant) and we got him patched up WAY better than my rushed cleaning did. The kitten is doing MUCH better now and purrs and makes a half attempt to play with my fingers or a hair tie thing.
With all that said, he IS pawless on that leg now. His skin is… “healing” where it had come off from the original wound. He seems to be three weeks old and could have been nursing still but more so “laps” the milk I feed him with the needle-less syringe. I only have evaporated milk to feed him since I know the straight cows milk is bad on him. I’ve not seen any KMR at any of the stores around here and the vets and shelters are so far off, I don’t like leaving him alone for such a long while. I’m glad I’ve been able to give him a fighting chance but it didn’t seem like he wanted to give up anyway.
With a kitten this old and in this condition, I’m not all sure what things I should be putting on his wound, feeding him (since the last litter I tended to was many years ago) or exactly what I should be doing to assist him all over. I’ve been able to handle animal wounds but nothing that was this bad(a lot better as of now but still bad). I’d just like a bit of advice with that and probably to see if I’m doing anything good.
He gets fed every four hours (he wakes me to remind me in the night) with warmed evaporated milk until I can get KMR SOMEWHERE. He drinks about 8-10 ml each time and then starts moving his head away to look around. I can only re-bandage him once a day right now with my limited supplies of self-stick cloth tape wrapped around a non-stick pad thing that I put that ointment on (I’m not sure what it is called but it appears as a florescent green color that I suppose he used on most of the animals there). About 20-30 minutes after his feeding he curls up to nap. I’ve been able to get him to urinate a few times a day but have yet to get him to defecate. I hear he might not do so much due to the liquid diet I have him on but I’d like to be sure. His urine is hot, not warm, if that is anything to mention. The wound does have a slight scent to it but I don’t see that leaving until many more treatments. His belly is fairly round and soft, not hard. I’m having a few issues trying to keep him from licking on the tiny bit of exposed wound (I can’t get the pad to go over his “elbow”) and he ends up chewing at the cloth tape stuff. I pap on his head a bit to try to discourage it, not hard just a light tap to get his attention away. He is in a box not too deep with a cat bed pad and a towel in it. His eyes are wide and clean and ears all the way open (except for the tiny little tips that bend a bit). Nose is clean as well as his fur and doesn’t have any fleas on him at all.
Again, sorry for my wall of text. 😕 I just don’t want to leave anything important out. Also not good with “topic tags”