One of Ten Bottle Babes Dies

Last night, one of the ten bottle babes, all born to the same mother, believe it or not, had died. He was one of the original two she left to die and by last night, his heart was making bizarre beats. Maybe she knew and maybe that's why she left him. I have no doubt there will be more deaths. These cats were terribly worm infested. I don't know if roundworm larvae can cross the placenta. They invade and cross through organs in severely infected cats.



Any cat who gives birth to ten kittens and is worm infested doesn't have much to put into forming each kitten. I don't know if any will survive. It's unbelievable she had ten kittens and another mother there had 8 kittens.



Boy, what's in the water in Lebanon?



I had tried to split the kittens between the two mothers, since the 8 older kittens went to Safehaven and a neighbor took one in. But the black mom, who had the 8, abandoned them in the night. I woke up to kitten screams. They were cold and hungry. I put them back on the heating pad, warmed them up, fed them, then put them all in with Synergy, their real mom, who is trying to care for them and to recover, from having ten kittens and spay surgery. Thankfully, she got the feral package at the Snipped clinic, so she got wormed. She also tested negative for FIV/Felk.



These poor cats have suffered with parasite loads and still, when the mothers were impregnated, had to donate what they little they had to forming kittens.



No wonder there were relatively few cats there. Kittens just don't survive under those conditions.



From first litters this spring and summer, there were only four survivor kittens who grew to be about three months old.



Roundworms kill kittens. They kill them by stealing nutrition and their ability to grow and by robbing their mother of nutrition while they are still in the womb. They also kill kittens in more hideous ways, strangling them, destroying their organs and blocking their guts.



I also wormed the orange and white kitten from the Kind Man colony and he pooped out roundworms you wouldn't believe. What is wrong with people, putting out food but doing nothing else?



I can understand this from a really old woman but not from younger people, who can buy a bottle of wormer for almost nothing and mix it into food put out, with almost no outlay of effort or money?



What is wrong with people who own cats, as house pets, who don't even fix or worm their own cats?



Feed cats, your own, or strays? Fix them and worm them. At least.