Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Kitten Issue Resolved

The Albany kittens in foster issue has been resolved. By whom else, but Poppa Inc's president who jumped into action.

She got them to a vet today, for the adoption group, and, because the adoption group who is officially fostering them, wanted the black kittens tested, she also got them tested. They were negative and did not have diarrhea. The fosterer had misunderstood that they were from a different situation and all 8 kittens had been in the same room loose.

The six Albany kittens do have coccidia and are now under treatment with albon. Thank goodness the seed warehouse two do not show any signs of it. They are both now over two pounds, but Poppa's president asked me to wait to get them fixed until they are three pounds and that's just fine!

Outside of diarrhea, which is not severe, the vet said the kittens were fine. Several of the six had already overcome it. He said they were tiny for their age due to coccidia. Kittens can't grow if they have diarrhea and are not absorbing food. Now, hopefully, they'll grow. Albon only stops the reproduction of coccidia. The kitten or cat must still overcome the infection. Probiotics added to the food can help this happen.

It is essential to monitor poop of rescued cats and kittens. This is hard to do with clay and clumping litter, which is why I dislike those types so much. One reason anyhow. I also hate the dust and mess they create. And I hate with clumping litter the pain of scraping the hardened like concrete clumps off the bottom of the box. I use wood pellet fuel for cat litter, the big 40 lb. bags made for pellet fuel stoves. No additives, probably could be burned afterwards, except for the ammonia from the urine, which disintegrates the pellets into sawdust. However, it can be easily composted, if one has the space.

The poop says a lot about the cats' health. I am still dealing with Valentino's abnormal poop, which is gooey and loose but shows no parasites.

Valentino overeats and was on antibiotics for over two months. He's now on probiotics to help restore gut health, but we're still not sure what is going on with him. At this time, the vet believes he is stressed, from all he went through when out on his own, the long term mouth infection from bad teeth, and being around so many cats. She believes his stress exhibits through scratching and over eating and stomach disruption. He's going on amitriptilene for a brief trial, to see if that helps break some cycles.

This drug worked very well on my Maine Coon female, Bangor, who had recurrent bladder infections and urination problems, together with a thickened bladder wall from inflammation. This was determined to be stress caused and it took, when she had a problem, only three days on amitriptilene to resolve. However, the long term solution for Bangor was to find her a home as an only cat. Stress plays out in the body many ways.

Those tame Albany kittens were far more unhealthy than the warehouse wild pair of kittens. Their mother and those farm workers fed them and took care of them much better than those owned Albany kittens were taken care of.

Isn't that a statement to some effect of some sort.

So all is well in foster kitten land to the north, where rescuers and fosterers and cat fixers alike are overwhelmed, despite the zip code difference.

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