The smell of death

So, I have fostered over 100 cats and kittens in the past 3 years. I recently fostered a Mama and her four kittens. I found homes for 2 of the kittens and returned Mama and the remaining two back to the shelter when they turned 8 weeks. Ten days later I went in and decided to check on them. I was really upset because they had lost weight and looked sick. Apparently, they weren't eating the kibble offered. They were still nursing off of mom though. I ended up taking them back home (without mom) to try and get them healthy again.

I weighed them when I got home and  Mario was 1lb 9oz and Luigi was 1lb 7oz. Over the next 48 hours Luigi lost even more weight and went from barely eating to not eating. About 24 hrs after I had got them home, I noticed Luigi had a very sweet pugnent odour to his breath. I recognized the smell from when I was nursing terminally ill patients. It was the smell of death. That was last Saturday. The vet put him on Sulfa as there was no obvious reasons for him failing so, she treated him for possible Coccydia. It's been a long few days but today was the first day I noticed the smell is finally gone. :) (Wednesday). He's still only 1lb 3oz at 10 weeks!! But now I have hope he'll pull through.

Has anyone else experienced the smell of death? Apparently it's the body realeasing ketones.

Yes, they did mention that the day before they had looking depressed and listless. They had started to feed wet food and offer a different kibble. I know that if I hadn't taken them home, Luigi would be dead. In hindsight, I believe they might have been carriers of Coccydia and the stress of taking them into the shelter activated it. The two kittens that were adopted are fine ...gaining with no health issues. in fact I called the one lady and her kitten was 2.5lbs the day I weighed mine at 1.5lbs. They didn't have typical diarrhea of Coccydia.

Luigi will survive but as of last night still only weighed 1.3lbs. I've been feeding him small amounts every 3hrs. He seems to get full fast, prob from not eating for so long. He has started to eat a bit of kibble. He only sleeps and eats, no playing yet.

The morning after I started the medication, Mario was listless, had lost weight overnight and had diarrhea. It seems I started the meds just in time of him. He was back to himself that evening.

I just don't know how I'm going to take them back. I'm finding fostering harder and harder these days. Even though I know I took them back at the appropriate time, I still know, that they got sick because I took them back. To see them sit in a cage for weeks or months just kills me.

I'm going to try very hard to find them homes...