We brought home our 17 week kitten Maine Coon kitten this past Tuesday and she was brought to her first vet visit Friday, along with a stool sample.
Overall she the checkup went well, she looked great, bright eyed (a little bit of dirt at the corners but nothing the vet was too worried about), no fleas, well fed, good coat, energetic, friendly, etc. However, the stool sample came back and tested positive for Coccidia - even though her stool is perfect looking. She's been pooping perfect looking tootsie rolls quite regularly in fact - so at least the parasite hasn't effected her intestines (yet). My understanding is there might be a form of this where it does not.
Whatever the case, obviously she has to be treated so she's been given a 10 day course of Albon to take - we're using pills and hiding them in her food, 1/2 a pill once a day for 10 days. Thankfully she eats like a champ, and literally licked her bowl clean pill and all.
Anyway, I'm not so worried about that end of it since I understand what has to be done. We happen to be using disposable litter pans since she's currently in a "safe room" being kept from our resident cat and it just seemed easier to use those anyway. I've been diligent about cleaning up the box twice a day even before we found this up and have been tidying up in her playpen area as needed all day long.
Plus we had really hoped by this weekend we'd be able to start making introductions between Cocoa and Luna but now that's on hold.
However, now I'm worried about one thing. Do we have to worry about all the bedding in there? We've been letting her on the bed with us, to hang out. Is it possible that this parasite can somehow attach itself to us, and then we pass it to Cocoabean? That is kind of freaking me out a bit. Or should we not worry so much since I also read older cats don't seem to get effected by this as much? And when they do more likely it's passed through sharing a litterbox because of it being in the feces?
I haven't even mentioned this to my husband. He's already bummed enough; I had taken off this past week to be home to help acclimate Luna to our house, never even thinking that something like this might crop up and I have to be back to work Monday. So, he's now stuck at home all week kitten sitting alone (he's retired) and I feel awful about that. I mean, you can't leave a kitten alone in a room all the time so he's really got to be in there with her a good portion of the day or she'll be so bored and lonely!
Ok I digressed a bit there. Any info I can get about how much cleaning is needed here to avoid passing it to Cocoa from anyone would be helpful here.
Overall she the checkup went well, she looked great, bright eyed (a little bit of dirt at the corners but nothing the vet was too worried about), no fleas, well fed, good coat, energetic, friendly, etc. However, the stool sample came back and tested positive for Coccidia - even though her stool is perfect looking. She's been pooping perfect looking tootsie rolls quite regularly in fact - so at least the parasite hasn't effected her intestines (yet). My understanding is there might be a form of this where it does not.
Whatever the case, obviously she has to be treated so she's been given a 10 day course of Albon to take - we're using pills and hiding them in her food, 1/2 a pill once a day for 10 days. Thankfully she eats like a champ, and literally licked her bowl clean pill and all.
Anyway, I'm not so worried about that end of it since I understand what has to be done. We happen to be using disposable litter pans since she's currently in a "safe room" being kept from our resident cat and it just seemed easier to use those anyway. I've been diligent about cleaning up the box twice a day even before we found this up and have been tidying up in her playpen area as needed all day long.
Plus we had really hoped by this weekend we'd be able to start making introductions between Cocoa and Luna but now that's on hold.
However, now I'm worried about one thing. Do we have to worry about all the bedding in there? We've been letting her on the bed with us, to hang out. Is it possible that this parasite can somehow attach itself to us, and then we pass it to Cocoabean? That is kind of freaking me out a bit. Or should we not worry so much since I also read older cats don't seem to get effected by this as much? And when they do more likely it's passed through sharing a litterbox because of it being in the feces?
I haven't even mentioned this to my husband. He's already bummed enough; I had taken off this past week to be home to help acclimate Luna to our house, never even thinking that something like this might crop up and I have to be back to work Monday. So, he's now stuck at home all week kitten sitting alone (he's retired) and I feel awful about that. I mean, you can't leave a kitten alone in a room all the time so he's really got to be in there with her a good portion of the day or she'll be so bored and lonely!
Ok I digressed a bit there. Any info I can get about how much cleaning is needed here to avoid passing it to Cocoa from anyone would be helpful here.