Hi Everyone!
Let me say, thank you in advance for any help offered. We (my husband and I) run a small kitten rescue out of our home. We pay for all needs including vet bills for any bottle babies or kittens in need of emergent care such a surgeries or extreme medical cases, that other rescues in our area won't take.
Long story short, we have a litter of 5 that is baffling us. We've had our fair share of failure to thrive kittens, kittens that needed help well before they found us, and kittens that got improper care; and in a lot of cases, we can turn them around. I'm a vet tech, and am lucky enough that my veterinarian will see all of my kittens. That being said, this litter was found tied up in a garbage bag; upon intake they were all extremely thin, weak, and dehydrated. They were approximately 4 weeks old and refused KMR liquid. We feed them wet kitten food mixed with a small amount of KMR, they refuse it if it's too 'milky.'
It has been about 3 weeks and they have each only gained about 50 grams, up to this point there was never a loss in weight, but never a real gain like we see with our other kittens. They have been dewormed twice since intake with Strongid. They do not groom at all and need a lot of help keeping clean as they don't eat food, they suck at it like babies who are just figuring out food, they aren't active (only very occassional zoomies for about 5 steps), have chronic off and on diarrhea, and seem to constantly be eating. We are giving them Florastor probiotics as well. They literally always look like ticks, until the last couple of days. Now a couple of them are slacking off on eating, seeming a little more lethargic, and are overall more ADR than usual. They have had negative fecals, sent off a giardia panel yesterday (results TBD), and not anemic. I got some turkey baby food with a couple that are interested but the 'sickiest' are a no go on baby food too. They are now close to 6.5 weeks and my bottle babies that are at 4 weeks are surpassing them in weight and almost in development.
We did some subQ fluids to help rehydrate them and are keeping a watch, we have Clavamox on hand to treat a possible oncoming URI, is there anything that we are missing? We have no real history on them other than being found in a garbage bag. What else can we do to try and turn these kids around?
Let me say, thank you in advance for any help offered. We (my husband and I) run a small kitten rescue out of our home. We pay for all needs including vet bills for any bottle babies or kittens in need of emergent care such a surgeries or extreme medical cases, that other rescues in our area won't take.
Long story short, we have a litter of 5 that is baffling us. We've had our fair share of failure to thrive kittens, kittens that needed help well before they found us, and kittens that got improper care; and in a lot of cases, we can turn them around. I'm a vet tech, and am lucky enough that my veterinarian will see all of my kittens. That being said, this litter was found tied up in a garbage bag; upon intake they were all extremely thin, weak, and dehydrated. They were approximately 4 weeks old and refused KMR liquid. We feed them wet kitten food mixed with a small amount of KMR, they refuse it if it's too 'milky.'
It has been about 3 weeks and they have each only gained about 50 grams, up to this point there was never a loss in weight, but never a real gain like we see with our other kittens. They have been dewormed twice since intake with Strongid. They do not groom at all and need a lot of help keeping clean as they don't eat food, they suck at it like babies who are just figuring out food, they aren't active (only very occassional zoomies for about 5 steps), have chronic off and on diarrhea, and seem to constantly be eating. We are giving them Florastor probiotics as well. They literally always look like ticks, until the last couple of days. Now a couple of them are slacking off on eating, seeming a little more lethargic, and are overall more ADR than usual. They have had negative fecals, sent off a giardia panel yesterday (results TBD), and not anemic. I got some turkey baby food with a couple that are interested but the 'sickiest' are a no go on baby food too. They are now close to 6.5 weeks and my bottle babies that are at 4 weeks are surpassing them in weight and almost in development.
We did some subQ fluids to help rehydrate them and are keeping a watch, we have Clavamox on hand to treat a possible oncoming URI, is there anything that we are missing? We have no real history on them other than being found in a garbage bag. What else can we do to try and turn these kids around?
