Hi Everyone,
I don’t post on here often, but right now I need some support and guidance and I don’t know where else to turn. I foster kittens for a local humane society and have run into a really horrible rough patch lately. The last 4 kittens I have taken in have all passed away or crashed and had to be put down because they couldn’t recover. I had a single kitten who passed after 2 days of being in my care. Then I took another single kitten about a week later after decontaminating my foster room, who seemed to be doing well. He ate normally, and then all of a sudden started refusing food and having diarrhea. Then after I force fed KMR for two days (with fluids and nutrical to try and boost energy) he crashed to the point that he couldn’t recover and we had to put him to sleep.
I waited about 3 weeks after losing this last kitten to take another group. This last group that I took 5 days ago are about 4-5 weeks old. They were a little underweight, but ate KMR and wet food like little champions and seemed to be fine. 2 days ago the two boys (who were also the skinnier of the three babies) stopped eating on their own and then they started having diarrhea. I tried like hell to get them to start eating again, I gave them Subq fluids, nutrical and force fed wetfood/kmr, I put pedialyte in their water and sugar water on their gums. It seemed like no matter what I did they were still dehydrated, still not active and alert or playful like they had been just a few days before. Then this morning I went into my foster room to find that one of them had passed away overnight. I immediately brought the other failing kitten to the vet at the shelter and she looked at him and we both agreed that he was suffering and it was cruel to let him continue on.
Now I just have the little girl of the litter left, I named her Joy. She was always bigger and thriftier than her brothers and she’s spunky as can be. She’s running around the room right now playing with about 10 toys at once, and she’s eating well and her bowel movements seem normal. BUT, regardless of all of those good things I AM FREAKING OUT! I have been fostering kittens for 3 years and up until 2 months ago I had only lost 3 out of 47 of them. I consider myself to be pretty knowledgeable about raising kittens and I don’t know what I am doing wrong, or what I can do better. I am feeding them the same type of food each time, and watching them to make sure they are eating enough.
The vet at work is going to take a blood sample and check for low white blood cell counts to see if it’s distemper, I don’t know what to do for Joy if the other two passed away from distemper.
Basically I’m just at a loss of what to do and so so so worried about Joy. I get so attached to them and I honestly thought that this litter would be fine, everything had been going so well. Any advice or guidance would be so appreciated, I’ve become a basket case about this.
Jillian
If the pictures show up…this is Joy <3