Orphans won't stop crying

Took on 3 new fosters yesterday, eyes only just opening around 7-8 days old. Of the three, one is taking the bottle perfectly, pees and poops well and sleeps the rest of the time. The other two girls, no matter what I do, just will not stop screaming. They take the bottle (they fight it a little) and are peeing and pooping too, but just will not settle. They are warm, have rice buddies and are well fed (taking about 3-4ml every 3 hours) and are peeing and pooing before and after each feed, but the screaming just doesn't stop. Any suggestions? I can't get them to a vet because we are in Istanbul and I don't feel safe going out with the babies with all the protests and tear gas. Please help!

My kitten L.A. CONSTANTLY meowed & screamed. Believe it or not it was my ferret that quieted her down cuddling her. Try getting a larger furry stuffed animal & fuzzy blankie. Or put a blankie in your lap (furry one) and use a warm damp washcloth to pretend groom them (like a momma would)

I'm tempted to let one of the adult cats cuddle them, I have a very motherly spayed female but I've never put kittens younger than 3-4 weeks next to her. Cuddly toy and furry blankets and sock buddies not working at all. They're going to exhaust themselves if they keep this up.

Let the female meet them but watch her CLOSELY.

Finally 3 sleepy babies. Milka groomed them, they're doing much better now. They all have the runs but I'm assuming that is because they've only just started on kitty milk? They spent over 24 hours alone without their mum or any care..

Awwww poor things. I'm glad surrogate mamma cat came to the rescue! post pics & please continue to update on how they are doing.

They're finally all asleep again, they do have the runs though which is worrying me slightly.

Oh my are they precious! My kitten had runny poop the entire time she was on milk. You say they are only a week old or so right? You can always start a thread asking about runnu poop in little kittens. I can't tell you much other than Aiko had runny poops til he was 9 weeks :/

He was on wet food &bowl kitten milk because he was weaned early & refused to drink water til 9 weeks. Only wanted milk lol

Thanks for the advice. Just an update, babies seem to be doing better, less diarrhea even if it is still rather more liquid than I'd like. They're all taking the bottle very very well, vet has got them on antibiotics and had us dilute the milk with water 50% until the diarrhea stops. Feeding them every 2 hours, seems to be working for now. Fingers crossed they make it, they already lost their mum to tear gas they don't deserve this.

I know ALOT of people on here recommend mixing a little bit of plain canned pumpkin olin with wet food (pure pumpkin check the ingredients) to help with both runny poop & too hard poop/constipation.

As the babies aren't even 2 weeks old yet I think canned food and pumpkin will have to wait. Am trying to find rice cereal so I can start thickening their milk a little in a few days. Other than the runs they seem to be thriving, drinking well, very active when awake, growing well. Might try to find another brand of kitten milk and see if that helps any.

Allytt said:

Might try to find another brand of kitten milk and see if that helps any.

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Can you get goat milk? It works often very nicely.  sometimes you must dilute it a little, but that is all.

Raw goat milk is even better, giving some antibodies from a living mom.

If they get more diarrhea, a nice pedialyte recommended esp in cases of diarrhea is:

Rice water after overcooked rice, + some salt.  Typically 1 tea spoon = 3grammes in one litre.

Such a pedialyte is also somewhat a stopper.

Good luck!

I wasn't able to get goat milk, however the vet prescribed antibiotics and watering down of the formula which cleared up the runs. When the runs stopped we slowly went back to normal strength formula. Great? Not quite, now I have 2 constipated babies. Last night on my vets advice I gave each one drop of olive oil and I managed to get one baby to poo and she finally got out a 10-12cm, sticky/hard poo, the other 2 are still very constipated and cry terribly every time I try to stimulate them. It's just too hard/sticky to come out and they barely manage to get out a tiny 1cm piece each time. The vet says to give it time but I can't bear to see them like this, especially as when they're backed up like this they seem so uncomfortable.

You could try again with a somewhat diluted formula.   It is quite common to do so, to lessen on the constipations.

Lets hope others have also tips for small kittens.

You do have the site www.kitten-rescue.com?  It is some time I read it through, I think there are some useful tips.

Good luck!

I just can't seem to get the balance right with these guys. We've gone from diarrhea to constipation and back to diarrhea again. I'm not sure which I prefer, I worry like crazy that I'm going to lose them to dehydration when they have diarrhea, and I can't stand to see them in pain when they are constipated. I'm trying to balance out the water-formula ratio (the 1:4 listed on the packet gives them diarrhea, 1:5 and they're constipated). Somehow the more water I use for their milk, the firmer their poos get. I've never looked forward to weaning kittens this much before in my life. I'll be glad when the day comes that they can have their first nibble on solids..