Need Help/Advice/Information! 4 baby kittens….

Make sure your kids wash their hands thoroughly after playing with the kittens and they don’t handle the poop. If the children get scratched or bit, clean the wound thoroughly and take them to the doctor if redness develops. When the kittens start moving about make sure they don’t get into the children’s play areas until they are reliably litter trained. So they can’t have accidents there. That should prevent most diseases. Ringworm is very obvious. It’s hairloss in a patches and it’s spread through close contact. However your children could easily get ringworm at school like many children do every year. The other concern is a disease caused Toxoplasmosis which is caused by a parasite. It’s deadly to cats but usually only causes mild flu like symptoms in humans. Antibiotics treats it. You would know if you cat has toxo. It will make the cat very sick and they start to walk like their drunk.

I’ve had cats my whole life and I’ve never had any issues. My childhood cat even slept in the crib with us as babies. (which I don’t recommend because the cat can smother the baby, but we turned out ok).

There is a low-cost vet clinic run by the organization PAWS, Philadelphia Animal Welfare Society. http://www.phillypaws.org/Spay-Neuter-Wellness-Clinic/default.asp

They are also a good organization for helping you find homes for the kittens. They are no-kill. I’ve been a member for years. Not sure if they can take them in their shelter with this being kitten season and all, but perhaps if you offer to foster them, they can publicize them for you and organize adoption events when they are older.

Also, as a point of comparison, I take my cats to the Delaware County Animal Hospital near 69th street station and according my recent receipt, the price was $35 for a check-up. I am pretty sure that’s the cheapest your find in the suburbs. Explain that they were abandon and you might get a good deal though.

It’s unlikely (almost impossible) for your girls to get intestinal worms from the kittens. If the kittens have fleas you might see a flea bite or two on the girls, but probably not. Each subspecies of fleas has a preferred host and a cat-loving flea will usually only bit a dog or a human if it can’t find a cat.

The one thing that is easily transferred from cats to humans is ringworm. Ringworm is not really a worm but a fungus. They have lots of different names depending on where the infection is. (Hair, groin, feet, etc.)

If the kittens have the fungus they will have little bald patches on their skin which could be red or flaky. It looks the same way on humans. Kittens aren’t born with ringworm and you would have probably seen it by now if they had it, so I wouldn’t worry about it.

Regarding the vet: $50/each is pretty reasonable but it does add up when you have multiple kittens. I would do so more calling around, including the local shelters and TNR places. You may be able to find a less expensive option or a vet that will take payments.

Vets have a hard time of it – it can cost them as much time and money to become a vet as it does to get through human medical school. They have to pay rent, insurance, taxes, employees, etc. A human without funds or insurance can go to a hospital and the government ends up covering some of the bill, but there’s nothing in place like that for a vet.

Keep looking though, even if you have to drive further than you wanted. You saved these little guys from death after their mama left. If she hadn’t left, there would have been four more feral cats in the world, having more feral babies and living short, diseased lives. Somewhere close to you there will be someone or something that can help you out since you are helping the wee ones.