- Joined
- Sep 25, 2016
- Messages
- 13
- Purraise
- 3
Hi everybody, not very often that I need assistance, but here I am, with a kitten that keeps everybody on their toes.
I’m a student at a local college. We are here in South Texas, meaning warm weather + poor people = many stray cats. On campus we created a student organization dedicated to spay/neuter our campus kitties, we vaccinate them and maintain feeding stations 24/7. We don’t have a free Spay/Neuter clinic, so everything comes out of our own pockets, students, teachers all alike. Once in a while we host fundraiser events to keeps us running.
September 15th, so 10 days ago, a student found a tiny kitten lying on a pavement in front of a building during heavy rain. She picked up the kitten and brought it to a teacher who she knew was involved with our club. Long story short, kitten ended up with me a few hours later.
This is Chloe. When I got her she weighed in 0.91 ounces. Yes, you read that right. She was less than a handful of life. I was sure she wouldn’t make it through the night. Hubby and I took turns, we fed her every 2 hours day and night and Chloe was slowly gaining weight, she even opened her eyes. After a couple of days she became active and started to crawl around, conquering the world. This is when we noticed something was up with her front leg. It was at an odd angle. Hubby thought he might have hurt her with his big hand so rushed her to the night clinic, where the ER vet took x-rays.
Her front legs are deformed. I wasn’t there, all I heard was “missing bones and cartilage”. The ER vet recommended to get a second opinion with another vet. We have an appointment tomorrow.
Chloe gained weight. As of today she weighs 7.7 ounces, right on where she belongs. She is very strong and loud. But she feels like “special needs”. Difficult to put it in words, it’s more like a gut feeling.
Digestion: we feed her KMR, the canned milk, and it gives her diarrhea. I tried KMR – powdered- and it gave her constipation, even watered down and carefully prepared.
Drinking: I bottle fed kittens before. Not a lot of experience to look back on, but a bit. After feeding, Chloe is never satisfied. She is very angry. She is always looking for the bottle. She easily drinks 10ml in a sitting. We have to be careful not to overfeed her. After feeding she never cuddles. She is always looking for more, and she is angry, angry enough to bite on the nipple of the bottle and growling at the damn thing. Only way to calm her down is to put her in the bed (with heating pad) and a purring toy. Peeing/pooping works.
Milk goes up the nose: no matter what bottle, what nipple or what angle you hold Chloe, with or without a break, she always drinks so fast and vigorously, that milk goes up her nose. I start to suspect there might be a small cleft.
She is – however – a cute kitten, a crazy fighter, and her little cries are really eating away at us. We hope for more input tomorrow.
I’m not sure if she’s in pain or just super angry at the world.
And now, so you guys can melt a little, here she is:
I’m a student at a local college. We are here in South Texas, meaning warm weather + poor people = many stray cats. On campus we created a student organization dedicated to spay/neuter our campus kitties, we vaccinate them and maintain feeding stations 24/7. We don’t have a free Spay/Neuter clinic, so everything comes out of our own pockets, students, teachers all alike. Once in a while we host fundraiser events to keeps us running.
September 15th, so 10 days ago, a student found a tiny kitten lying on a pavement in front of a building during heavy rain. She picked up the kitten and brought it to a teacher who she knew was involved with our club. Long story short, kitten ended up with me a few hours later.
This is Chloe. When I got her she weighed in 0.91 ounces. Yes, you read that right. She was less than a handful of life. I was sure she wouldn’t make it through the night. Hubby and I took turns, we fed her every 2 hours day and night and Chloe was slowly gaining weight, she even opened her eyes. After a couple of days she became active and started to crawl around, conquering the world. This is when we noticed something was up with her front leg. It was at an odd angle. Hubby thought he might have hurt her with his big hand so rushed her to the night clinic, where the ER vet took x-rays.
Her front legs are deformed. I wasn’t there, all I heard was “missing bones and cartilage”. The ER vet recommended to get a second opinion with another vet. We have an appointment tomorrow.
Chloe gained weight. As of today she weighs 7.7 ounces, right on where she belongs. She is very strong and loud. But she feels like “special needs”. Difficult to put it in words, it’s more like a gut feeling.
Digestion: we feed her KMR, the canned milk, and it gives her diarrhea. I tried KMR – powdered- and it gave her constipation, even watered down and carefully prepared.
Drinking: I bottle fed kittens before. Not a lot of experience to look back on, but a bit. After feeding, Chloe is never satisfied. She is very angry. She is always looking for the bottle. She easily drinks 10ml in a sitting. We have to be careful not to overfeed her. After feeding she never cuddles. She is always looking for more, and she is angry, angry enough to bite on the nipple of the bottle and growling at the damn thing. Only way to calm her down is to put her in the bed (with heating pad) and a purring toy. Peeing/pooping works.
Milk goes up the nose: no matter what bottle, what nipple or what angle you hold Chloe, with or without a break, she always drinks so fast and vigorously, that milk goes up her nose. I start to suspect there might be a small cleft.
She is – however – a cute kitten, a crazy fighter, and her little cries are really eating away at us. We hope for more input tomorrow.
I’m not sure if she’s in pain or just super angry at the world.
And now, so you guys can melt a little, here she is:
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