Save a Life. Foster.
I remember one of the first litter of bottle babies was a litter of 5 tabbies. The first night, they cried. And cried. And cried. Nothing I did would seem to quiet them. And finally, exhausted, I had no choice but to let them cry...
Because I foster severely sick kittens, euthanasia is something I’m very familiar with. And because I work with shelters who are comfortable with my experience, it’s often “my” decision if a kitten is euthanized. In other words, I know that if I call them and...
Unfortunately, I knew that this litter was going to get a URI. There mother was very sick with a URI and they got no colostrum from her. So their immune system is even more compromised than normal. And on Monday, I noticed that they were...
Saturday morning arrived with bloody diarrhea. Very blood diarrhea. At 7am. I gave him a dose of fluids and penicillin G. Everything seemed fine when I fed again at 10 so I wasn’t too worried. At 11, I heard noise from their cage and I...
My first litter arrived this morning. It stated with a call to pick up four kittens, born to a feral mom with a severe URI. Mom immediately rejected the litter, so they have received no colostrum. And because she is sick and unfriendly, there’s no...
I foster a lot of ringworm cats and kittens, but that’s not all I foster. This winter I was asked to foster & tame two older feral kittens. One, Calvin, became friendly faster than the other so after 6 weeks with me, he was sent...
I had heard that you could diagnose ringworm by looking at the glowing hairs under a microscope. However, when I first learned of this, I thought it seemed strange. After all, glowing hair diagnoses ringworm. Then I started getting “ringworm” kittens from shelters that had...
Feline panleukopenia (FP or panleuk) is a highly contagious viral disease. It is also called feline distemper, although it should not be compared to canine distemper. It may also be called feline parvo, because panleukopenia is caused by a parvovirus and is similar to canine...
What is the survivability of Feline Panleukopenia? Well, it’s not an easy question to answer, so I’ll talk about my own experience and give you a few studies. My Experience When people hear I have a lot of experience with panleukopenia, they often ask what...
Anytime someone mentions a kitten has diarrhea or has vomited on social media, someone immediately suggests that it might be panleukopenia. They do this solely on seeing either of those symptoms. And to be fair, I was likely guilty of this when I was a...