Limping feral kitten under my care.

alysbrangwin

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If this belongs in the Feral & Rescue forum, I appologize.

Today one of the feral kittens that I feed came to the backporch where the food is located and would not stand on "his" left hind leg at all and limped around. I am unable to hold him or get close enough to do an inspection of his leg to determine a possible cause of the injury, nor it's severity. He was able to lift the leg to lick himself, and was able to scratch the back of his head with that paw. Is this something that would require a vet's care, or is it likely that it will clear up on it's own? If a vet trip is needed, how would I go about catching him, and if need be, how would I keep him confined til the injury heals? (We have 2 cats, so my father will not allow anymore inside the house.) Or would he be fine roaming free while he's healing?
 

kittenkiya

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If you want to try and trap him I know that there are many members here that can help you with that.

I also have ferals and Princess showed up about a week ago with her front leg held up in the air. She could not walk on it all. Of course, I freaked. However, she has been trapped before and there is no way she would get back into the trap, no matter what was put in if for bait. I had to hold my breath and watch her from day to day. Now she is completely healed and is walking normally.

I also have another feral who is NOT mine, but comes to eat sometimes and he showed one day with his leg open to the bone. I REALLY freaked. I got one of my neighbors to try and help me, I was going to chase him down and try to catch him. He was bleeding all over the street. He got away from us and we supposed that we would never see him again. but a week later he showed up, very nicely healed, still sore but he took care of it himself.

Sometimes there is just nothing that you can do. If the cat is tamer, like Princess, I might be able to get and give her some help. But Mr. Gray, the other one, that is an absolute no go.

You can't blame yourself, you can only do what you can do. It's really nice to see someone with such a big heart who is willing to help.
 

jcat

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I would try and trap him (the local humane society should be able to lend or rent you a humane trap) and have him checked and treated by a vet, and also neutered.
 
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alysbrangwin

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KittenKiya - Okay, I'll have to check into that shortly.

Does trapping them to get them healed or fixed damage their trust of you? That's good.


Eep! Wow, it must have been scary with all that blood.
That's great. ^_^ One of my big concerns is if the black and white tom cat who killed a number of the kittens and adults in the "herd" who were here a year ago has returned after a 4 month absence. (I think I only have 2 left from a year ago, the rest of the bunch disappeared. From what a neighbor told me, and from my own knowledge of hearing, and usually breaking up cat fights, several cats, including their own got infected wounds and died.)

Well, the kittens will run up to me (since I'm the one who feeds them
) and will get close, but only one of the group will let me touch them without fleeing. And "she's" only allowed that for less than a week now.

Thank you.


jcat - The community where we live has ONE humane trap ($10 returnable deposit.). Heh, my vet's going to get sick of seeing us since we're often there for our 18 year old cat Duncan who has Pre-renal disease (something like that), late onset epilepsy, arthritis, frequent UTIs, and last week was found to have a slight amount of congestive heart failure with water retention. We've been wanting to take them to one of the free fixing clinics, but we don't currently have 5+ cats who are old enough and not currently nursing, but it's something that needs done real soon since the two adults (both females) had a litter in the last 2 months.
 

kittenkiya

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Surprisingly enough, when I got the ferals home, they took off for a day or so, but after that, it was like nothing ever happened. They just won't go near the trap. If I put the trap on the porch, they are gone.
 
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