6 month old kitten no longer growing

revenwyn

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Simon was 1 month old and around 7 ounces when we rescued him late this July. His sister Carly was a whole pound. She now weighs nearly 7 pounds. Simon weighs 4 pounds. He is not thin for his body size, not malnourished, everything at the vet checks a-ok, no worms or anything, but he's still very small. His sister is much bigger than him. He's probably seven inches tall from foot to shoulder and maybe ten or eleven inches long from neck to rump. While his sister has recently gone through a growth spurt, it's been over a month since Simon has grown at all or gained any weight. Still he looks fine for his size and he eats a cup of food a day. He's proportional, so I don't think he's affected by any sort of cat dwarfism. Do you think he's just a small cat? He was obviously the runt of the litter, but so was our Binky, and she's now a hefty 12 pounds (she should be 10 and we're trying to cut her down to that. Binky's only a year and a half.) Simon still retains a kittenish face and is the sweetest little tuxedo gentleman you can imagine.

Any advice would be appreciated, we're still pretty new cat owners. In fact we'd never had cats before we rescued these four.
 

catapault

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I'm not a vet. I haven't stayed at Motel 6.

There's  condition called hepatoportal shunt. It's an abnormal blood vessel that shunts blood around the liver. Seen in Persians and mixed breed cats, more often in males. It is general noticed at about 6 months, and one symptom is  undersize / failure to grow. In cats the vessel is general external to the liver which means it is relatively easy to correct by surgery, tieing off the abnormal blood vessel.

From the Merck Veterinary Manual: "Animals with congenital PSS are often smaller than littermates, show failure to thrive, and can have other congenital abnormalities (eg, cryptorchidism in dogs and cats, heart murmurs in cats). Male cats may be more prone to congenital shunts than females. Clinical signs are usually seen by 6 mo of age in cats and between 6 mo and 1 yr of age in dogs. "

Not saying this is it but it is certainly one possibility to discuss with your veterinarian.

Good luck to you and all your little fur babies. Do post and let us know how things develop.
 
 
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mrblanche

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Some cats are just smaller.  Our Flambe is only about 5 pounds.  The famous Homer (the blind cat) only weighs 3 pounds, if I understand correctly.  We see small cats on a regular basis at the shelter.  If you've had him thoroughly checked by the vet, and he doesn't seem to be otherwise affected, I'd say enjoy your kitten while he stays that way.  He may put on a growth spurt later.  Has he been neutered?
 
 
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revenwyn

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Some cats are just smaller.  Our Flambe is only about 5 pounds.  The famous Homer (the blind cat) only weighs 3 pounds, if I understand correctly.  We see small cats on a regular basis at the shelter.  If you've had him thoroughly checked by the vet, and he doesn't seem to be otherwise affected, I'd say enjoy your kitten while he stays that way.  He may put on a growth spurt later.  Has he been neutered?
 
No, we have not neutered him yet as we only had the money for two of them (note we did try to find homes, rescue groups or whatever to take them as we're very poor.) So we took the oldest male and the female kitten (the adult female was spayed earlier this summer.) I know we should neuter him too but we don't have the money as of yet and he's not showing any signs of sexual maturity other than the little fuzzies.
 

mrblanche

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Where are you in Arkansas?  That state is not doing well in assistance for spaying and neutering, but there are some areas that are better than others.
 
 
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revenwyn

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Where are you in Arkansas?  That state is not doing well in assistance for spaying and neutering, but there are some areas that are better than others.
 
We're in a town called Searcy, an hour and a half north east of Little Rock. We do not have transportation outside of the town. There is a no-kill organization struggling to start but they did not have the funds to help with the spay/neuter, the local shelter has a low cost spay/neuter for DOGS but not cats (also cats don't get adopted as people don't spay their pets and dump them when the grow up.) The nearest operational cat rescue is in Little Rock and they won't help us in Searcy at all, not even to pick up the cats if they had foster room.

This town is basically the business center for a bunch of farming communities around it. The only reason it really exists is that in the 1930s a conservative Christian college placed their campus here, "miles away from any sin" as it's a dry county (meaning you cannot buy alcohol anywhere within county limits.) So about half of its "population" is students who cannot have pets and another 1/4 are faculty of the school, who often don't have pets or they were raised with the "Southern Belle" mentality that pets NEVER came inside unless leaving them out would be an active danger to their life (blizzard, severe thunderstorm, etc.) Apparently, most cats here never see a vet. That is reserved for the family dog, whom they will drive an hour away to the nearest 24 hour vet clinic if it was dying. Not so the cat. People here do not like cats, they are treated like vermin, it is legal to SHOOT them if they come in your yard. The colony around us is lucky in that the two houses next to us are unoccupied (the owners don't want to TNR them because they feel that nature will get rid of the ones not meant to survive) and the third house down belongs to a guy who likes cats (albeit, he won't bring them inside, at least he fixes any born in his backyard.)

Those who are not adverse to cats also do not really like them. They may have one or two but they are outdoor only, pest control, and never see a vet in their life. After all, who doesn't like kittens? They can show their children/grandchildren the "miracle of birth" and tiny kittens and give them away and then the kids want a new kitten next year so they dump the cat when it's sexually mature. It's sick.

It cost us $90 to fix our little female, and about $60 for the male. Then of course cost for bloodwork and a pain shot to make sure they don't hurt in the week. We had to put it on CareCredit. We still have more money on the CareCredit but we're struggling to pay all of our bills as it is. We make a lot less than most people in the area but these prices are still out of reach for most people here. I can see why they can't justify spending it. As far as having kittens is concerned, they just let nature take its course and if mama and kittens die, so be it. 
 
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revenwyn

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Okay, a month later, he has still not grown at all. The doctor still says he is healthy, but he's very small for 7 months. His face is still rather kittenish. He has a lovely glossy tuxedo coat, and while we can see his hipbones, his ribs are not jutting out. He's lean and lanky. He eats like a horse. In fact we need to be careful what we eat because he will try to nip things out of it.

He did use to have chronic diarrhea, but no cause could be found for it. The vet actually recommended feeding him a small amount of mashed potatoes, making sure that they were free of course from onion or garlic. It seems to have cleared right up. So he gets about a teaspoon of mashed potato twice a week.
 

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If he's otherwise healthy, he may just be a small cat, as someone else said. I have a petite cat who was always smaller than her litter mates. I got concerned at one point and took her to the vet to make sure she was ok. The vet basically told me I was a worrywort. Some cats are just petite. But of course if there are any other issues with his health, then I would be more concerned. With regards to the diarrhea, did he ever get dewormed?

By the way, do you know the name of the no-kill organization that's trying to start up? Do they have a webpage, facebook page or anything? Maybe they could start taking online donations.
 
 
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revenwyn

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He has been dewormed. The vet thinks he might have been born just slightly premature. He needs to eat more frequently and smaller amounts than our other cats or else food just goes straight through him. As I have said we were not planning on having cats but we weren't going to let him starve right outside our house either. We barely had money for precursory checks, and the no kill organization actually finally wrote us back and said sorry, they are dogs only.

Our neighbor works for a cat food company and can bring home 26 pounds a week. We don't want to have to feed them this crap but at an income of $700 a month for now it's a choice between crappy food or them being put down. Nobody around here wants cats. That is something we will not allow to happen.

I think he may be allergic to the food though, which is a concern, but as long as we offer him some mashed potatoes the diarrhea seems to go away. We plan on feeding raw when I get a job.
 
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scuns68

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I have a year old foster cat that is the size of a 4 month old kitten, when I found him I thought for sure he was a bottle baby thats how tiny he was but he ate. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this cat besides being on the smaller side.
 

agentspooky

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Good luck with everything, Revenwyn, I'm sure you're trying your best and I applaud you for caring for these kitties.

It's too bad about the no-kill group. There have to be some other cat lovers near you somewhere!
 
 

taylors

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Hi was wondering after all this time how your tiny kitty turned out?.....We too have adopted 3 kittens in June and had vet visits and neutering etc. and one of the kittens is still about 3 pounds and has lose stools still and vet says he is fine.....Thanks, The Taylors
 
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revenwyn

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Hi,

We had to move in May of 2013 and were only able to take two cats and had to rehome him. I don't know how he is doing now, but he was still the same size before then
 

samus

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This might be relevant. I was reading about B12 for my cat today and came across this:
I can’t say for certain without actually testing the kittens for B12 levels to know if they are deficient. I do know
that when kittens who are orphaned and are not doing well with weight gain or growth receive B12 treatments,
they do improve somewhat. I may only need to give them one dose but sometimes it could be weekly doses for
two to three weeks. The improvement is quite remarkable and in some kittens that have looked underweight and
sickly one week, look almost normal after a few weeks of therapy. Most go on to be quite normal after their initial
treatment(s) and I’m not sure if they were actually deficient OR maybe there is some sort of switch that is turned
on when they're really young and the B12 helps to activate that switch. I can’t say for certain but I would be
interested to see some research done by veterinary pediatric medicine.

http://www.ibdkitties.net/B12.html
Loose stools might also mean he's not able to absorb B12 (or other nutrients) from his food, if he has too much inflammation going on and it's just going right through him.
 
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