The short story:
My newborn foster had a light respiratory infection at exactly seven days of age.
I gave it colloidal silver in water but was uncertain of the dosage, so I contacted wolfcreekranch.com/ wolfcreekranchorganics.com to ask advice.
The lady told me to give the kitten Vibactra Plus, an antiviral tincture I had purchased from her company in the past.
The tincture, made by Amber Technology, comes with a dosing chart from "under 3 lbs" (2 drops) to "151-250 lbs," and absolutely no cautionary note.
I gave my kittens (weighing 0.3 lbs) two drops each around 4 or 5 pm, and another drop before bedtime, and maybe one the following day, even though the symptoms were long gone. (The second kitty was not even coughing, but just had tiny hiccups in his breath.)
The second kitty (who had not been coughing) died Sunday morning.
The kitty with the cough hung on until Tuesday morning. I spent a lot of time with him. He would not nurse any more. I did not know what to do to make it better. Sometime in the course of Sunday I realized it was alcohol poisoning. The lady at Wolfcreek was telling me my kittens had worms I did not know about and I needed to dose them with diatomaceous earth.
My newborn foster had a light respiratory infection at exactly seven days of age.
I gave it colloidal silver in water but was uncertain of the dosage, so I contacted wolfcreekranch.com/ wolfcreekranchorganics.com to ask advice.
The lady told me to give the kitten Vibactra Plus, an antiviral tincture I had purchased from her company in the past.
The tincture, made by Amber Technology, comes with a dosing chart from "under 3 lbs" (2 drops) to "151-250 lbs," and absolutely no cautionary note.
I gave my kittens (weighing 0.3 lbs) two drops each around 4 or 5 pm, and another drop before bedtime, and maybe one the following day, even though the symptoms were long gone. (The second kitty was not even coughing, but just had tiny hiccups in his breath.)
The second kitty (who had not been coughing) died Sunday morning.
The kitty with the cough hung on until Tuesday morning. I spent a lot of time with him. He would not nurse any more. I did not know what to do to make it better. Sometime in the course of Sunday I realized it was alcohol poisoning. The lady at Wolfcreek was telling me my kittens had worms I did not know about and I needed to dose them with diatomaceous earth.
- I would like everybody to be warned: Experts make mistakes, too! You are the one living with your cats. You are the one, who is going to be sorry if something bad happens. Do not let down your "gatekeeper" mind when receiving professional (or in this case, salesperson) advice!!
- Ethanol, wine, beer, alcohol, and of course methanol -- are all toxic to cats, much more so than to humans!! I am never going to use an alcohol-based medication on my cats again.
- Newborn internal organs and livers are not yet functioning. They cannot tolerate what an adult can.
- Keep activated charcoal on hand at all times. It is good medicine for a poisoned critter or human. I will have to research dosing to be sure. I do not know whether that could have saved my kittens.
- I am unsure of what to do. I was very nice in describing the symptoms of alcohol poisoning to the sales rep as my kitten was dying. After he died, she wrote to me: "With all of the symptoms your kittens were having, it is unlikely you could have saved them." So I replied unequivocally that it was her advice that made me poison my cats. They were fine until she told me to give them her tincture! I forwarded the letter to her company, as well. But I am just unsure of what other steps I ought to take. (At the very least, write to Amber Technology to tell them to stop extracting their herbs into alcohol -- there are safer carriers.) Advice?