Hello all. Up until now, I've just been a casual reader and never found a reason to post. I've found this forum to be very helpful and supportive and hope you can give me some advice.
Main Question: Does anyone have any stories of FeLV scares? Good ending or bad, I just want to prepare myself.
Short Story:
My mom combined two kitten litters for one week. Some of the kittens were FeLV+. We are worried the other kittens have been infected and will get a persistent infection. I want to hear any stories or insights you may have.
Long Story:
I have been helping a feral cat colony outside my apartment complex for years. This past year, I bought a Tomahawk drop-down trap to Trap-Neuter-Release (TNR) a tricky mom cat. He had 4 kittens this year.
4/26/2018 - TNR feral mom cat. Captured 2 kittens estimated at 4 or 5 weeks old. There were still 2 more kittens not yet captured. I gave the captured ones to my mom to foster. She is a foster volunteer with the local shelter.
5/15/2018 - Caught remaining 2 kittens. My husband and I tried catching them every day but were unsuccessful until we threw to of neighbors and a Blink motion sensor camera. At this point, they are estimated at 7-8 weeks old. They also go to my mom and are reunited with their siblings.
The four kittens from the feral colony will be referred to as Litter A.
Meanwhile, my aunt is a volunteer foster for the same shelter. She has been taking care of Litter B for two weeks. According to her, Litter B consisted of 2 kittens of the same litter and one orphan kitten. 3 kittens total. She stated that the shelter asked her to take them in as an emergency foster even though it overlapped with her vacation. She took them in for 2 weeks and had brought them to my mom for the last week.
5/23/2018 - Aunt drops off Litter B and immediately starts unloading them into Litter A's room. My mom allows this even though the 2 kittens of Litter B are visibly ill. One has sneezing/runny nose while the other has an eye infection. I point these out but my aunt says that it was a prior infection that they've already finished their antibiotics and they should be fine. My mom and Aunt state that the shelter has vaccinated them and tested for everything. However, the shelter never gave the vaccination or medical history info for the foster kittens. They only had their FVRCP vaccine and testing for parasites. Nothing about FELV.
5/30/2018 - The two most social and healthy kittens of both litters are brought to the shelter to be fixed and put up for adoption. We were already going to adopt those two from Litter A.
... The two sick kittens from Litter B tested FeLV+. The shelter called my mom and aunt. Neither picked up in time and they were put down. My kittens from Litter A were negative and got adopted as planned.
5/31/2018 - At my urging, all remaining kittens were tested and vaccinated for FeLV. All were negative - even the last of Litter B, who was an orphan lumped with the two FeLV+ kittens. Orphan was a runt and will be lucky to reach 6 lbs in adulthood. She had to be force-fed prior to my mom, who fed her boiled chicken. It's the only thing she'll eat. So it surprised me that this weak kitten was exposed for 3 weeks and was still negative.
Litter A was quarantined in groups of two. Orphan lives by herself.
6/5/2018 - One of Litter A had stopped eating and got lethargic. He seemed off after the vaccine but regressed over time. He seemed to be getting better the day before but crashed on 6/5. I rushed him to the vet and got blood tests and subcutaneous injection for fluids. He had a fever of 105 F (normal is at 102 F). I would give the blood results later, as this past week be long.
6/6/2018 - Fever Kitten was progressing. I brought him in for a follow-up. Vet thinks he had a reaction to the FeLV vaccine. He has been normal since. The remaining kittens had mild conjunctivitis and are otherwise fine.
They are being re-tested and getting their booster shots next week on 6/27/2018, 4 weeks after their first FeLV test. I have been going crazy and sick with worry. I took them away from their mom with the belief that they were going somewhere better... But they might get FeLV because of 1 week of exposure. The two infected kittens weren't observed grooming the other kittens but they shared the same dishes. Any info about kittens with FeLV has been about kittens getting it as newborns... Not as 10-12 week old kittens. And they all say that kittens are particularly vulnerable...
Do you think I got them vaccinated in time? Have you faced anything similar? Please share your story.
Main Question: Does anyone have any stories of FeLV scares? Good ending or bad, I just want to prepare myself.
Short Story:
My mom combined two kitten litters for one week. Some of the kittens were FeLV+. We are worried the other kittens have been infected and will get a persistent infection. I want to hear any stories or insights you may have.
Long Story:
I have been helping a feral cat colony outside my apartment complex for years. This past year, I bought a Tomahawk drop-down trap to Trap-Neuter-Release (TNR) a tricky mom cat. He had 4 kittens this year.
4/26/2018 - TNR feral mom cat. Captured 2 kittens estimated at 4 or 5 weeks old. There were still 2 more kittens not yet captured. I gave the captured ones to my mom to foster. She is a foster volunteer with the local shelter.
5/15/2018 - Caught remaining 2 kittens. My husband and I tried catching them every day but were unsuccessful until we threw to of neighbors and a Blink motion sensor camera. At this point, they are estimated at 7-8 weeks old. They also go to my mom and are reunited with their siblings.
The four kittens from the feral colony will be referred to as Litter A.
Meanwhile, my aunt is a volunteer foster for the same shelter. She has been taking care of Litter B for two weeks. According to her, Litter B consisted of 2 kittens of the same litter and one orphan kitten. 3 kittens total. She stated that the shelter asked her to take them in as an emergency foster even though it overlapped with her vacation. She took them in for 2 weeks and had brought them to my mom for the last week.
5/23/2018 - Aunt drops off Litter B and immediately starts unloading them into Litter A's room. My mom allows this even though the 2 kittens of Litter B are visibly ill. One has sneezing/runny nose while the other has an eye infection. I point these out but my aunt says that it was a prior infection that they've already finished their antibiotics and they should be fine. My mom and Aunt state that the shelter has vaccinated them and tested for everything. However, the shelter never gave the vaccination or medical history info for the foster kittens. They only had their FVRCP vaccine and testing for parasites. Nothing about FELV.
5/30/2018 - The two most social and healthy kittens of both litters are brought to the shelter to be fixed and put up for adoption. We were already going to adopt those two from Litter A.
... The two sick kittens from Litter B tested FeLV+. The shelter called my mom and aunt. Neither picked up in time and they were put down. My kittens from Litter A were negative and got adopted as planned.
5/31/2018 - At my urging, all remaining kittens were tested and vaccinated for FeLV. All were negative - even the last of Litter B, who was an orphan lumped with the two FeLV+ kittens. Orphan was a runt and will be lucky to reach 6 lbs in adulthood. She had to be force-fed prior to my mom, who fed her boiled chicken. It's the only thing she'll eat. So it surprised me that this weak kitten was exposed for 3 weeks and was still negative.
Litter A was quarantined in groups of two. Orphan lives by herself.
6/5/2018 - One of Litter A had stopped eating and got lethargic. He seemed off after the vaccine but regressed over time. He seemed to be getting better the day before but crashed on 6/5. I rushed him to the vet and got blood tests and subcutaneous injection for fluids. He had a fever of 105 F (normal is at 102 F). I would give the blood results later, as this past week be long.
6/6/2018 - Fever Kitten was progressing. I brought him in for a follow-up. Vet thinks he had a reaction to the FeLV vaccine. He has been normal since. The remaining kittens had mild conjunctivitis and are otherwise fine.
They are being re-tested and getting their booster shots next week on 6/27/2018, 4 weeks after their first FeLV test. I have been going crazy and sick with worry. I took them away from their mom with the belief that they were going somewhere better... But they might get FeLV because of 1 week of exposure. The two infected kittens weren't observed grooming the other kittens but they shared the same dishes. Any info about kittens with FeLV has been about kittens getting it as newborns... Not as 10-12 week old kittens. And they all say that kittens are particularly vulnerable...
Do you think I got them vaccinated in time? Have you faced anything similar? Please share your story.
. You are right in that most of the time they (kittens) contract it from their mom. I think in this case you may just have to wait and see what happens next week, and even then, you may not get your answer, because when they are young, you often get false negative or false positive results 
. At this point I would say we can just hope for the best. 
