Rescued 3 week old kitten- tips on how to care for

Oh my gosh, he's adorable...  I want him. LOL

what a cutie! Thank you for rescuing this baby! I love the expression on his face! Adorable!

sarthur2, it's mustard colored, same color as his wet food. I'll start feeding him every 3-4 hrs then and I'm leaving hard food out for him too, didn't think 6 hrs was enough either, glad you mentioned it! Thank you!!! I caved and went back to the vet just now lol. Gave him fluids and a dewormer, sent stool sample out but vet is thinking it's worms but says he looks pretty good.I'm relieved, whew!
He is a major cutie! Had to be on my chest during the drive so he could look around, I got tired of fighting him to get back on the box lol.
Think I just got cat number 4 lol. Ah well.

It really makes you rethink coincidence or fate? I was driving for 1.5 hrs and he ran across the road right when I was passing by? Nah, it was fate.I have to think it was for a reason I think my spoiled cats are posting flyers around town..." Free room, board and lots of catnip...just run past her and give her your best cute face and she'll take you in! See description of sucker human below"

LOL If you're a "human sucker" well count me in as one Too!!  Bear is such a cute!!!

It's the Cat Goddess at work!

Mustard yellow poop is not healthy poop, so it's good you went to the vet. Hopefully, the worm meds will help.

If it continues, you'll need an antibiotic. Yellow can be indicative of a bacterial infection. Regardless of the stool sample results, if the yellow diarrhea does not clear in s day or so, you'll need meds. You should be able to just pick them up since he's been seen now.

You do realize that next vet trip you'll need a proper cat carrier for safety!

Still yellow runny poop this evening, so with just going to the vet today and getting dewormed, how long should I wait to see if the dewormer works, or the labs come back before going back to get meds? They also gave him fluids but said he didn't appear dehydrated, I guess cause he's so small width diareah.
Absolutely on the cat carrier, it was a spur decision to rush him up there and forgot to get one at the pet store, and don't want to cross contaminate him with my other kitties stuff but I'm getting one today. Thanks!

If he were my kitten, I would call first thing tomorrow morning and ask for a medication to start him on for the yellow poop while you wait for results. Albon is a good place to start.

Why wouldn't the vet have done that when I was there??? Arrr!!! I'm gonna do that, I'm not waiting. Thank you again!!!

tigger13

Vet probably wants to wait for test results, but some things don't show up in regular fecals, like coccidia. All vets are different. Some will go ahead and prescribe based on experience and circumstances. Others are strictly by the book. I personally don't like to take chances. Diarrhea is always serious business in my book.

sarthur2 said:

If he were my kitten, I would call first thing tomorrow morning and ask for a medication to start him on for the yellow poop while you wait for results. Albon is a good place to start.

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Albon is widely used for stopping coccidia (which do causes persistent diarrhea). Albon takes many bacterias, but is renowned for the use against the parasite coccidia in cats and dogs. The drawback?  it is slow.

But if you need quicker results, some of our advisors recommend ponazuril

Tigger13 said:

Still yellow runny poop this evening, so with just going to the vet today and getting dewormed, how long should I wait to see if the dewormer works, or the labs come back before going back to get meds? They also gave him fluids but said he didn't appear dehydrated, I guess cause he's so small width diareah.
Absolutely on the cat carrier, it was a spur decision to rush him up there and forgot to get one at the pet store, and don't want to cross contaminate him with my other kitties stuff but I'm getting one today. Thanks!

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Goat milk is useful too.  Especielly if you can get raw - fresh goat milk, esp with the diarrhaea.   Also, if he has watery diarrhea, you must give him pedialyte, to compensate for the loss of electrolytes and salts.  And water of course.

There are several different solution to get hold of good pedialyte.  Im reusing an old post by me.  Its lenghy, but its also the state of the art at this moment.  

Pedialyte:

Re homemade pedialyte, Im reusing a couple of my older posts.  If it seems lenghy, the most important recipe is at the end.

Pedialyte:

Now, as the sugar source, I use always glucose sugar (dextrose/ dextropur).  Its easy to get in Sweden, most well equipped food shops do carry the powder.    There are also flavored sweeties, heavily used by students and  wanna be sportsmen,  made of glucose sugar.   

So for me its no big deal to use the proper ingredient, instead of using emergency replacements.

For american forumites whom have difficulties to find glucose sugar proper, there is always white caro syrup, or even honey - honey does contain some glucose, and white caro syrup contains much glucose sugar.  In some brands its perhaps even essentially liquid glucose sugar.

Common sugar works too, but much slower, as it must be digested..  While glucose doesnt need to be digested, it goes into blood directly from the stomach, yes, even from the lips and mouth.

These whom tried both, are astonished how quickly glucose works, practically instantly.

As salt source, I use  minerale salt.  Also common in shops here in Sweden.  This salt contains  several different minerales, not just the NaCl in the usual kitchen salt. Including this potassium K salt.

A nice base for salt sources is simple a bottle of good minerale water.   These do typically contain a lotsa of different salts, in suitable concentration. Look at the label!

Let the gas out, add the glucose sugar source, and voilá!  you got a terrific home made pedialyte...

Common kitchen salt is OK if you dont have anything else, but its too "poverty"  if you use the pedialyte more than occasionally.

A third recipe is,  you use water from well cooked rice.   In practice its heavily over cooked.

And add  salt to it, preferably  such a minerale salt mentioned above...

This rice water contains lotsa of glucose sugar.   This variation of  pedialyte probably extra useful in some types of diarrhea, as water from overcooked rice is in itself  one of the remedies against diarrhea.  At least, the emergency doc gave us the recipe when I was a child and sick in diarrhea...  

A nice combination should be,  a  homemade pedialyte on such an overboilded rice, in water of mineral water.

Here we get both natural glucose sugar, lotsa of good mineral salts, and the rests from rice whom are good when having a diarrhea.  After all, such rice water is a classical home remedy for humans with diarrhea...

There is of course bought pedialyte, which can be used too.  Some of the brands have too much funny ingredients, though.  But if desperate, can be used.

My recommendation for bough pedialyte is, flavorless pedialyte for babies.   This is OK for cats.

Well, I called the ER vet I took him to first when I got him and asked for something for the diareah listing my concerns about waiting for lab tests, they wouldnt, said the stool test should be in by tomorrow and as long as he is active and eating he should be ok. If he gets lethargic bring him in, they are 24hr vet. Wow is all I could think. He has about 7-8 bowel movements a day, est. and every one is yellow and liquid, not pure water, tad thicker but worrisome. He has vomited once, that I've seen/found, that was 2 days ago, looked like food, pale yellow/whitish, food consistency, not liquid.
Vet told me to try giving him chicken and rice to help his tummy and thicken up his stool....[emoji]128533[/emoji][emoji]128530[/emoji]
He is still drinking, eating and playing but I'm just shocked and pissed off at what seems to me, their concern not matching my own. They have schooling I know and I'm armed with nothing more than average experience and a devoted parental instinct. Hmmmm, I'd take the latter.
What do you guys think about the chicken and rice for tomorrow mornings feeding and if yes, what can I add to it so it's not so dry...water?
Man I'm angry. The 2nd vet he went to this morning will be open around 9am, I'll call them,in the morning and ask about some meds. I'm really worried.
[emoji]128546[/emoji]

Tigger13 said:

Well, I called the ER vet I took him to first when I got him and asked for something for the diareah listing my concerns about waiting for lab tests, they wouldnt, said the stool test should be in by tomorrow and as long as he is active and eating he should be ok. If he gets lethargic bring him in, they are 24hr vet. Wow is all I could think. He has about 7-8 bowel movements a day, est. and every one is yellow and liquid, not pure water, tad thicker but worrisome. He has vomited once, that I've seen/found, that was 2 days ago, looked like food, pale yellow/whitish, food consistency, not liquid.
Vet told me to try giving him chicken and rice to help his tummy and thicken up his stool....[emoji]128533[/emoji][emoji]128530[/emoji]
He is still drinking, eating and playing but I'm just shocked and pissed off at what seems to me, their concern not matching my own. They have schooling I know and I'm armed with nothing more than average experience and a devoted parental instinct. Hmmmm, I'd take the latter.
What do you guys think about the chicken and rice for tomorrow mornings feeding and if yes, what can I add to it so it's not so dry...water?
Man I'm angry. The 2nd vet he went to this morning will be open around 9am, I'll call them,in the morning and ask about some meds. I'm really worried.
[emoji]128546[/emoji]

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Chicken and well boiled rice are mild food, and classics.  You have surely heard about the chicken soup prepared by the jiddische mamma to her sick child?  Pidgeon meat is even better, but where do get pidgeons nowadays??

One of my recipes for homemade pedialyte was to overboil rice with minerale water...

You can do something similiar, add minerale water in the boiling water, so you are sure he gets lotsa of  good salts and electrolytes.

Chicken and rice is fine. It's mild on the tummy. So is Gerber chicken or turkey baby food in the jar.

7-8 diarrhea stools is too much. Sorry you got the runaround from the emergency vet. I'm hoping your regular vet will prescribe this morning.

Thank you all for the advice!! Switched him to pedialyte and chicken and rice this morning, he loves them both. Got Albon from the vet this morning and started that immediately, swear I felt like I had to beg for it, his fecal came up negative for everything. We'll see how he does now.

He should start improving soon! I'm glad you got the albon.

canned plain pumpkin helps with poop issues. since its a kitten you wont need more than 1/4-1/2 teaspoon-make sure its plain-nothing added. add to the KMR and water it down a bit-it will mix fine. once or twice a day is good. takes about 12 to 24 hours to get it to start working. it helps both constipation and runny poops. And give that other vet a buzz=don't understand that other vet not treating?!

GOOD on you for all you are doing, @Tigger13.  If you can get it and afford it, I would feed him kitten formula food of a good quality, such as Nutro, Blue Buffalo, Natural Balance, or other high-quality food, consistently.  Changing foods/introducing foods can cause any cat, of any age, to get diarrhea, and experts caution against it, stating that the new food should be introduced incrementally and very gradually over a period of several weeks, combining a small amount with the regular food and increasing the amount of the new food/decreasing the amount of the old food gradually, week by week, until after 2 or 3 weeks, the new food is being offered on its own.  I would not feed supermarket/store brand food at all, unless you can't get anything other than that.  Some cats like dry food mixed in with their wet food, and this would be a good way to introduce the dry, just a few kibbles at a time.  Canned pumpkin (pure, not with any other ingredient) mixed in with food can help stop diarrhea, btw.  Just a spoonful in the wet food.

For vet visits, a carrier is a must!  You can get an affordable cardboard one from most vets/clinics or "pet" supply stores.  He shouldn't be loose in the car.  And rather than electric heating pads, you can buy radiant heat cat beds/mats that reflect the cat's own body heat back up around the cat.  CatClaws.com has these, as does Drs.FosterSmith.com .  Purr pads are another nice choice for the same kind of comfort, and they can be thrown away if they get too dirty, because they're quite reasonable.  You get two in a set.

He is adorable!  Bear is a nice name for him. too.