Panleuk SUCKS!

We're in the midst of a panleuk outbreak with rescue this week. We've lost 14 kittens, and still have another 8 that are potentially sick as well.
You know how sometimes it seems like the stars and moon and sun all align and not in a good way? Yeah that's what happened to us.

2 weeks ago Thursday we were having a board meeting at our Pres's house. The kittens we think brought the parvo in were picked up by a foster home and brought to pres's house. Another foster home was to meet us there and pick them up. Easy transfer right? Wrong. The kittens were younger than we thought and we needed to see if they could eat on their own. When we determined that they were going to need a little more care than destination foster home could provide, we sent her home with an older litter instead. (Pres does bottle babies often so we had a group that was being weaned). Pres kept the newbies to work on getting them to eat better on their own. All litters are kept separate for obvious reasons. We sat there and all washed our hands after handling these guys. No one ever *really* thinks about distemper here, it happens so rarely. We worry about URI, and calici more than anything. Well, we all took it home on our clothes. Three of the people at the meeting that night have lost kittens to distemper. Another set of bottle babies at the meeting that night got sent out to three different homes as they needed serious 1 on 1 care. Two of those homes now have distemper, even though only one of those kittens ended up testing positive.

Its so sad and heartbreaking we all just want to scream. We've spent so many days up at the E-vet with diffeent kitties, having to euthanize different guys and trying to save the ones we can.

Good juju and paws crossed for us that we are nearing the end of our trials and tribulations this season.

hugs, and crossed paws, and lining up the stars for you.....

There is nothing more heartbreaking than watching cats and dogs fade away before your very eyes due to panleuk and parvo...I dealt with a parvo outbreak at a few shelters and there is no 'numbing' to it. You take it hour by hour and just roll with it. Oh and people like you really need to be cloned.

I will be thinking of you guys.

How awful! I'm so sorry you lost so many kittens, and may lose more before its over. Its a terrible thing and there's really not much that you can do. I'll be thinking of you and hoping some of the little ones make it through this terrible time.

That is so heart breaking. I know at our shelter we imunize for distemper, but we don't really think twice about actually getting a cat that has it. I've been there 4 years & have never seen it, but I know that about 10 years ago we did have a litter with it. This is why I'm so diligent about my cats immunizations. People say they don't go outside why do they need to go to the vet. I worry about bringing things home to them & have to explain to people that when it comes to working with animals you don't know, you just never know what you might come in contact with.
I"m so sorry for this horrible loss.
R.I.P. sweet babies, forever young over the bridge.

I know the feeling. I myself had to take a mother cat to the vet to be euthanized because she was dying of distemper. She was limp & wet all over. It was awful. The shelter here has precautious in place, but sometimes....I dunno. But I agree with you completely, esp. on the title of this thread.

Play happily over the rainbow bridge lil lost babies!

Lots of good juju and crossed paws that the worst of these troubles is over. Bless you for caring enough to work in animal rescue.

Ya'll need to get some Bac-cide and Color safe bleach and spray down ALL of the homes that have potentially been contaminated. Baccide is completly color safe.... color safe bleach is as well. Be sure that every time you go in and out of your shelter you spray your shoes as those are the one thing that spread parvo faster than just about anything! If you have any inside/outside cats at your shelter you MUST spray down all parks/grassy areas with straight bleach to kill it. Good luck hon- we just had a huge parvo outbreak at our shelter with our dogs (a little bit different) and it was a nightmare...we lost sooo many puppies and unvaccinated adult dogs

Aww that is so sad!! I originally thought I had a Panleuk outbreak in my HOME, but as it turns out, I was feeding the recalled food to the kittens who died and guess what? The symptoms are very very similar... I did a probably horrible test but I brought in a healthy unvaccinated kitten to see if it would get sick too, to know for sure and the new kitten was perfectly fine and still is. So it was most likely the food...

Earlier.... 2 other foster homes with symptoms took kitties to the vet and were cleared of distemper - doc says something parasitical. I was hoping we were nearing the end. But a foster home that's lost 3 of 5 already emailed saying she didnt think her girl would make it through the night. Another foster home with a kitty that DID survive the recalled pet food illness (5 days on supportive care) is now down with it. One of my 8 week old fosters is crashing. Now I feel just sad and depressed again.
I'll be sleeping downstairs by my guy to monitor him periodically through the night.

I think we're all ready for a two week vacation complete with beer, wine, and hard liquor.

I'm putting one down tonight, the vet thinks it's calici causing DIC
I didnt know what that was so I googled it:
Disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC), also called consumptive coagulopathy, is a pathological process in the body where the blood starts to coagulate throughout the whole body. This depletes the body of its platelets and coagulation factors, and there is a paradoxically increased risk of hemorrhage.

Another foster home lost one last night to distemper. A foster home lost one this morning to something - could be either the distemper or calici we didn't even realize we had until yesterday. The other foster home that lost 4 of her 5 to calici is potentially losing the other one.

We've lost 27 kittens this month. That's higher than an average of 1 per day. It's quite honestly depressing and sucks.