Someone Please Help Me Calm Down.

[LuLovesHerCrazyCats]

I am new here and I apologize my first post is high strung I suppose.

It's been a terrible week for my family as two of my sisters outdoor kitties she adopted and was feeding we're poisoned and I myself lost two of my baby kitties. I'll explain below.

Little back story. My mama cat decided she was going to go on a kitten eating rampage. She gave birth 6 weeks ago this past Friday. We lost 3 Bc she ate them and 3 remained. I spent the past month and a half of my life 110% dedicated to the remaining three kittens becoming mama cat. Only to lose two of them last week to a heart defect. They literally died within days of each other. It was so hard. We had them cremated and held a little kitty funeral. Yes I know what they say about mama cats who eat or abandon babies. The vet told me she was shocked those two lived as long as they did but never the less losing Salem and PinkyPie really crushed my heart. I love these babies so much.

Anyway. I've caught you up to speed and we are here now. I need to ask you all about something unusual that happened with Bunny tonight. I've named her bunny Bc she hops rather than runs and it's just to cute. I'm known to name animals weird stuff as I once had a cow named chicken.

Tonight I was feeding the remaining kitten, Bunny who's otherwise extremely healthy. When she was having her night milk (KRM) she started sneezing and a tiny bit of milk was expelled out of her little nose. She sneezed a few moments maybe 30 seconds however it seemed like much longer as I was fully freaking out, then Bunny was back to her normal self meowing. Crawling all over me even teething on my chin and fingers. She's now 6 weeks old. I have been so super careful when feeding her formula to prevent aspiration and now I'm so scared that's what happened and I'm going to lose her too. I'm so upset. I'm not sure what went wrong. I fed her so slow.

Before I'm lectured. She's on gruel in the day and KRM 3 times a day as instructed by the vet for weaning. She's not quite ready for water.

I'm looking for reassurance here that she could be okay. I do not think she fully aspirated Bc she got the milk out of her nose rather quick and she went back to herself. I gave her lungs a listen and I hear no gargling or cracking she's acting fine. Wanted to eat more but I told her no that was enough for now.

Please I'm aware of how fast ap can develop and claim a kitten but has anyone had a kitten this age do this and be okay!?!? Please. I am so terrified I was hysterical for a good half hour after this happened. I just need to hear success stories. Please no horror or dead kittens. We've had enough of that. Can anyone help me feel a little better. I mean I fully intend to call the vet in the morning but I'm so worried I can't sleep and I'm literally making myself sick her. I'm extremely attached to Bunny. I can't bare the thought of los Bc her too. Some one. Anyone please help me.

Here's a photo of my sweet Bunny. I love her so freaking much.

 

[vyger]

I tend to be more of a practical person rather than an overly emotional one. I think it partly comes from having been a single dad raising three adolescent kids. I mean I do get emotional a lot but in emergency situations I learned that keeping ones cool to work through the problems is often the best response. For example: the day I got a panic phone call from my daughter telling me that their little brother was laying on the ground bleeding all over. They were at their moms, visiting, 500 miles away. Where was she I asked, they didn't know, she had been gone for several hours.
So, now I am 911 . Panic would do absolutely no good. I have been through advanced first aid training. I even helped deliver my third child in emergency child birth. He was the one now bleeding all over. Remember your training, stay calm, find out what is really going on. Found out that they had been playing, running around and he went through a chain link gate that bounced off a tree came back at him and hit him flush in the face. OK, face and scalp wounds bleed a lot, that is normal, but no major vessels there that can cause them to immediately bleed out. Anyway, I had to orchestrate the entire thing from my phone. Talking to the ER so they could talk to the ambulance in route, yes I am the dad, yes you have permission, no we don't know where the mom is. You get the picture I think. After that call ended I was both very upset and very thankful because I should not have had to be the one arranging the help. But very thankful that I was there to answer the call and that it all worked out.

I have found that the same reaction often helps with cats that are in trouble. If someone screams "Oh MY God" when their cat shows up injured they have just transferred that panic to the cat. A calm quiet, hey whats going on with you? will help to keep the cat quiet which will often help prevent things from getting worse. SO , keep calm so your cat can stay calm.

I had a mom cat that ate a couple of her kittens, but they were already dead, she did not kill them. I know because I checked on them and found one laying off to the side and not in the kitten pile. It had died. I didn't take it immediately but instead went off to dig a hole to have a place to bury it. When I came back to get it, it was mostly gone. Pretty gross from our perspective but maybe not so much from a cats perspective. They eat dead things all the time. Yes it was her kitten, but now its just another dead thing. Keeping it in the nest with the others is a really bad idea so they need to dispose of it. At least by eating it they get back some of the energy they put into raising them to that point. So gross yes, but also practical.

A six week old kitten is pretty well advanced and should have most of its reflex's in place. So sneezing a little bit of milk out it's nose should not cause any problems. The nose and mouth are connected just like in people. It doesn't mean that anything went into its lungs. When people do it its just a very unpleasant feeling. But to get anything in your lungs means you had to swallow it and misdirect it on the way down. I have that talent. Take a drink of water and inhale it and then start coughing like crazy. When I do that my cats get very concerned. It's pretty funny actually but I have one that gets worried if I do something out of the ordinary.
Anyway, there is nothing you can really do now at this time and being anxious just transfers those emotions to the kitten. So the best thing to do is just be calm until there is something that you can do about it.

 

[Sarthur2]

Your kitten sounds fine!

Can you get the mama cat spayed right away?

 

[lacy2000]

The kitten will be ok! I’ve had tons of foster kittens do that before. Since she sneezed it up, that means she got it all out. Next time that happens, hold her upside down for a few seconds to let the milk run up her throat. That way you can be 100% sure she got it all out.