Fvrccp Vaccination Early And Over Vaccination?

[weebeasties]

We recently adopted a kitten from a shelter who was estimated to be 8 weeks old. In looking over his medical records it says he was vaccinated for FVRCCP at three weeks of age when he was brought to the shelter. He received additional FVRCCP vacs at 5 weeks and again at 7 weeks.
This is way out of line from most vaccine recommendations I have found. Usually they don't start until 8 weeks and you do subsequent injections at 4 week intervals.
Is it normal practice at shelters to start them early? Should I have my vet continue with his vacs every four weeks? It seems like it would be over-vaccinating this baby!

 

[duckpond]

my suggestion would be to take those records in, have your first vet visit, with your regular vet, and see what he says. It seems like a lot, but i dont know. Im sure your vet will be able to tell you what you need to do.

 

[weebeasties]

We took our new baby to the vet and now we have a little mystery.

To start things off, our vet doesn't know why on earth the shelter began vaccinations so early and often. They were pointless at that age because of the mother's antibodies in the kitten.

That being said, enough time has passed between his last vac at the shelter and now so he did give him another set.

The mystery is my vet doesn't think our kitten is as young as the shelter thought he was. According to our records our baby should have been 10 weeks on Tuesday. The problem is on Monday he weighed in at 4.4 pounds!

Our vet thinks he is several weeks older than we thought, or he is going to be a monster of a kitty!

So we are in a bit of a quandary as to how many more sets of vacs to give him. We know at least one more in a month. We are unsure about any more. We definitely don't want him to get a third set from our vet if it is unnecessary. Our vet is leaning towards one more set, then done. He is leaving the decision to us though.

What would you do? How unusual would it be for a 10 week old to weigh over 4 pounds?

 

[duckpond]

well, i think the average kitten at that age will weigh 2 or 3 lbs. So you may have a big boy I have a BIG male too, i love really big male cats

I would go with what your vet suggests on the vaccinations. If he is good with just one more set i would be too!

post a photo of your big boy, when you have time

 

[weebeasties]

I think I will probably go with the vet's thinking and assume he is older. It appears he was pretty ill when brought to the shelter and it took him quite awhile to start gaining weight. I do know he gained almost a pound and a half in the two weeks we have had him!

 

[cat1967]

Vets usually can tell the age of a kitten when checking his teeth. But they cannot always be accurate. My youngest cat changed teeth much later than all my other cats. However having them vaccinated at three weeks is so unusual. I was told after the second month they should be vaccinated. Anyway, since the kitten is ok it is good.

 

[weebeasties]

post a photo of your big boy, when you have time

He doesn't sit still for photos. I usually just get a black blur. Here are a couple that aren't too bad. One was from when we brought him home, the other two weeks later. He almost doubled in size! Kittenhood goes by too fast!

 

[cat1967]

He is so beautiful and cute! I love black cats! We have one or two in the neighborhood. I always feed them unlike other people. All the black cats we have had around had such a good character. One of the other stray cats had four kittens and the black mail used to lick them and wash them. I fed them all and the black male waited for the kittens to eat first and then he went near the bowl. He was better with the kittens than their own mother.

 

[denice]

He is so cute. One of mine got an extra vaccine in the series because she was started early. She said that shelters will go ahead and get them started when they come in even if it is obvious that they are not 8 weeks old. They have to do everything they can to prevent distemper in the shelter. She went ahead and gave her an extra one of at the end because they need to have one after all the maternal antibodies have worked out of their system.