Help with 4 week old kittens!!!!

[kittenkrazy123]

Hello

I saved a feral mother cat from getting eaten by a coyote on our property. Come to find out she was pregnant. She made it through and had 6 beautiful kittens. She did have a very hard time with feeding. She did great the first two weeks but I came home one day and she wouldn't let the kitten touch her and began to hiss at her. I ended up taking her to the vet and getting her antibiotics and fluids. She is alive and doing fine now. I had to separate her and the kittens while she was on antibiotics. So that led me to having to take mamas place. I was feeding the kittens every 3 hours as directed and doing everything right. Making sure the kittens weren't chilled or anything. The kittens are now 4 weeks old and are still bottle feeding. Today for some odd reason there was throw up in their cage. It looked like milk. Shortly after two of them died. I didn't understand. They weren't malnourished, they were completely fine. I am worried for the rest of the best. How do I know if it was something viral. I will be going to the vet but I would like to know if anyone else has had this experience. I am extremely heartbroken. When you raise babies from 2 weeks old it's a super hard thing to go through. I hope all my other kitties don't have this same problem.

 

[ondine]

I don't know a lot about kittens but I do know they are sometimes difficult to save when they don't have mom.

Perhaps you can post this in "Caring for Kittens and Pregnant Cats."  someone there is sure to know more.

Thank you so much for caring for them!  It is heartbreaking.

 

[tabbytom]

Hello kittenkrazy123, welcome to TCS

Thank you for saving momma cat and the kittens and am sorry to hear that two did not make it.

At four weeks old, the kittens should be able to eat wet food. Get canned wet food formulated for kittens as they need proteins to grow. Since you mentioned that they are not under nourished, you can weaned off the milk feed slowly and get them on the canned food. Hope you are not feeding them cow's milk. Cats are lactose intolerant. You can give them KMR milk replacer for kittens.

Please keep us updated

 

[Sarthur2]

It's so diificult and heartbreaking when this happens. Fading kitten syndrome comes on suddenly, and most times we just don't know what caused it. It was most likely a genetic defect that surfaced.

How are the other kittens now? Are they nursing mom?

 

[catsknowme]

  Welcome to TCS! Yes, I have had similarly sad results - it might be viral but for some reason, BIOMOXX (just a tiny drop) worked in saving some kittens. They lose the antibodies from their mother's milk which makes them susceptible to the prenatal viruses. I once had a litter of 5 sick feral kittens and the only survivor was a ginger kitten that I was giving antibiotics due to an unrelated eye problem. After that episode, my vet gave me antibiotics for another sick litter from the same colony and although they were on antibiotics off & on for the first year of their life, they eventually have recovered and did not need anymore antibiotics, not even during our exceptionally snowy & cold winter this year.

Another thing that I have found helps with the sick kittens is to use goat's milk instead of KMR. If I do have to use KMR, I dilute it and feed more frequently (not sure if others have the same problems with KMR). I use the recipe for "kitten glop" on www.kitten-rescue.com.  I also feed L-lysine to the mom, in the rare instance that I have the mother in "custody".

Condolences on the loss of those 2 little darlings - at least they knew the kindness and love of their mother and you. And sending prayers and vibes for the remaining little ones, that they make a full recovery

 

[StefanZ]

Hello

I saved a feral mother cat from getting eaten by a coyote on our property. Come to find out she was pregnant. She made it through and had 6 beautiful kittens. She did have a very hard time with feeding. She did great the first two weeks but I came home one day and she wouldn't let the kitten touch her and began to hiss at her. I ended up taking her to the vet and getting her antibiotics and fluids. She is alive and doing fine now. I had to separate her and the kittens while she was on antibiotics. So that led me to having to take mamas place. I was feeding the kittens every 3 hours as directed and doing everything right. Making sure the kittens weren't chilled or anything. The kittens are now 4 weeks old and are still bottle feeding. Today for some odd reason there was throw up in their cage. It looked like milk. Shortly after two of them died. I didn't understand. They weren't malnourished, they were completely fine. I am worried for the rest of the best. How do I know if it was something viral. I will be going to the vet but I would like to know if anyone else has had this experience. I am extremely heartbroken. When you raise babies from 2 weeks old it's a super hard thing to go through. I hope all my other kitties don't have this same problem.

Difficult to say much, if you did evertything reasonably correctly...  Do / did these kittens add weight as they should? ie about 10g+ a day?

If you can get raw goats milk, this may be a good alternative.  Im saying this alike the knowleable Catsknowme.  This milk comes too from an alive mom, and has some antibodies.  Common bottled / powdered goats milk is OK to use. Its not better than a good but, but may be a try to change the wind in the sails.

Btw, which kmr do you use?   This made by PetAg?   Hartz makes something similiar, but the quality there is very uneven.

The milky throwing was milk.  dying kittens cease to digest, and the last kmr meals gets undigested.  So such whitish fluid isnt the cause of the death, but its one of the symptoms of dying.

IF you have a kittten clearly downhill,  use instead  sweet water with dextrose sugar in - there is aplenty in for example honey or white caro syrup...  This dextrose / glucose sugar doesnt need to be digested, goes straight into blood already in the mouth...

If the kitten is dying for real, it wont save it, but may buy you time for recovery to come...