No the kittens can get sick from the infection. You'll have to supplement for a couple of days.
You will need small needleless syringes 1 -2 ml (ask the vet for some), nursing kittens won't take a bottle. Powder form of KMR, Pet Ag brand is good, avoid Hartz and Seargents. Pick up some unflavored pedialyte to mix the KMR with since the switch will likely cause diarrhea. You will also need a heat source, heating pad, bottles filled with hot water,
The KMR needs to be warm when you feed the kittens and the kittens need to be warm as well. Feed them tummy down, head up like they are nursing at mom. Take your time and be patient - it takes practice. Put one or two drops in the side of the mouth, wait for the kitten to swallow and breath, repeat. Burp afterwards.
The kittens will need to be feed every 2 hours around the clock. (sorry but it does matter).
Weigh each kitten and keep a log.
To figure out how much to weigh the kitten multiply kittens weight in ounces by 8ml and divide by the number of feedings or in this case, 12. This is how much you need to get the kittens to eat at each feeding.
Hopefully mom will help clean the kittens and help them to eliminate.
If it is mastitis, the kittens have already been exposed to the infection, so they would benefit from the antibiotics in mom's milk. However, they would need to be off mom's nipple's for as long as it takes her to heal. So please ask the vet if the kittens need antibiotics themselves since they've been exposed.
The vet should give you a topical for her nipples in addition to antibiotics. If he doesn't, please ask for one. Otherwise, Udder Balm works great and is non-toxic to the kittens.
If you do not have KMR, you can usually purchase it at the vet and they can give you a syringe.
Congrats! Another ginger mumma and her babies! 3 cream boys and 2 tortie girls! How gorgeous! It's cool that you can sex a ginger females babies by colour. Hope the vet visit goes well.
U can tell by the color? That is so cool! I was trying to see if I could tell by looking lol and that's what it looked like 3 boys 2 girls. I had no idea....that's pretty interesting!
Yep, it only works if dad was non ginger but the fact you have 2 tortie kittens proves dad was not ginger If dad was ginger all kittens would be ginger boys and girls. I did a bit of genetic research when I found a dumped mumma cat and her 3 babies... I was really interested in her colours and the colours of her babies. Basically ginger in cats is a sex linked recessive gene, so it's carried on the sex chromosome. Girls need 2 doses of the gene to be ginger and boys only need one dose to be ginger. When a girl cat only gets one dose of the ginger gene she is a Tortoise shell. And boys don't have room on that particular chromosome to have 2 doses of ginger so they are ginger or they are not, they cannot carry the ginger gene in a tortoise shell manner like the girls can.
That is really interesting I had never heard of that and when I went and checked I was like no way lol....pretty cool. So do you think the cream ones will be ginger? Or will they stay light? Also when I take mom to the vet do I bring the babies or do I leave them home?
So there is another gene at play with your babies here too... The dilution gene, it turns ginger to cream and black to blue. So technically they are ginger dilutes AKA creams and the 2 girls are dilute AKA blue torties That means both mom and dad carried the dilute gene, or very good chance dad was a cream or blue, but mom is ginger from what I can tell so she would carry the dilute gene. Here is my rescue girl Saffy she is a classic torbie and white and she carries the dilution gene like your girl does because one of her sons is a spotted tabby cream and white, his name is Sampson.
[emoji]128571[/emoji] so cute! It's crazy all the different colors and patterns they get. This has been a great experience wish I could keep all the kittens lol thank you for all that info....I will be taking them to the vet tonight when I get off work and will update everyone thanks so much!
No worries at all Sorry to take over with the colour stuff I just find it so interesting LOL. More serious business RE mumma cats teats, hope all goes well.
Hey everyone sorry took a while to respond. Took mom to the vet and she does not have mastitis. (Yay) I was told the cause of all the redness is from the babies nursing too often and the kittens nails scratching. They gave me a cream to put on her and instructed me to separate her from the kittens a few hours a day so they aren't constantly feed. So far it has helped a lot and they are looking more normal. I will post pictures later of mom and babies thanks again for everyone's help [emoji]128570[/emoji]