devastated .. omg

So i have handraised these beautiful kittens from 2 weeks old..today i wake up and go to say hi to my babies.. and 2 of my kittens are dead.. NO SIGNS as to WHY.. they are vet checked.. deemed healthy ... 2 have found homes.. 3 were still with me.. and now there is one.. I feel guilty.. i dont know what the heck could have happened.. any insight would be useful .. they were 5 weeks or more. god this is terrible..

I am so sorry for your loss! I have no idea why you would lose two...maybe call your vet?!?

Sometimes things just happen...I lost 3 of a litter of 5 last summer...here is the link. http://www.thecatsite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=56119
We did have a necropsy on the third kitten, but nothing was found. The Mom was a foster kitty who did have 3 litters in 6 months, so maybe she just didn't have what it took to grow healthy kittens?!?

Do have the remaining two vet checked to be sure they are still ok.

Condolences on this painful loss!

How are the other kittens doing, the one you have and the two that have already been adopted? I hope everyone else remains healthy and strong for you.

5 weeks are young babies. What happened to mom. RIP babies..

Do you have other animals in the house? Were there any clues? Any vomiting, bathroom problems, anything you saw that might have been different?

Can you give us an idea of how you were raising them? It was probably just nature, but hard to tell with little information.

Please, if you ever find yourself in the future with kittens, keep them together till at least 8 weeks old. 5 weeks was really too young to separate them and to send them off to other homes.

Someone brought them to me in a trashcan saying.. I just found em.. so i took em to the vet.. got antibiotics.. KMR... and the other needed items vet said they were about 17 days old. So ive kept them warm.. in the house..room to roam..bottle fed them.. got them on solids eventually.. did all the meds.. they were fine happy fat kittens.. dewormed them.. like i said i just go in to check on them.. and 2 were dead.. no stool.. no vomit.. not anemic.. no weight loss.. but 2 of them to die at the same time is just weird.. and i cannot fathom it.

Originally Posted by Charmed654321

Please, if you ever find yourself in the future with kittens, keep them together till at least 8 weeks old. 5 weeks was really too young to separate them and to send them off to other homes.

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I have to run a buisness.. 3 children.. ect. the VET told me when i got them established on solids that they could be sent to new homes.

I got Stormy when she was 6 weeks and she really was too young BUT she had a mom she could have stayed with........Even though your kittens were only 5 weeks if you had a responsible person adopting one then they could probablly have taken over the responsibility since You were the mom. Im so sorry for your loss......

I think the "don't send kittens away too young" has a lot to do with them staying with their mom... but these kittens didn't have any mom...

I wonder if cats have SIDS just like human babies do?...

Originally Posted by Callista

I think the "don't send kittens away too young" has a lot to do with them staying with their mom... but these kittens didn't have any mom...

I wonder if cats have SIDS just like human babies do?...

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I think you are probably on the right track, Callista. I think it was just something awfully sad that happened.

Sometimes bottle fed babies have to be separated from each other because they start nursing on each other...it is different from kittens with a Mom. And the ones you kept died...to me if the separation was the problem, it would be the ones who left.

I think we are all just trying to help problem solve here...to see if we can help figure out what went wrong...

Kittens can crash so fast without any warning. Sometimes unless you monitor them 24x7 they can slip from you with no warning. Don't be hard on yourself - it sounds like you were did all you could to get them healthy in spite of their early trauma in life.

*hugs*

I'm very sorry for your loss.

And yes, cats do have a SIDS equivalent - Its called Fading Kitten Syndrome and there is no rhyme or reason to it, it just happens. There is no way to prevent it from happening and nothing that can be done to stop it.

I hope your other kitten is ok and does not have the same fate.

I'm soo sorry...but do keep in mind, that the two weeks you spent nursing and caring for those two kittens made a difference in their lives, and they spent two weeks with someone who loved and cared for them...that's the best any animal could ask for...