I visited a no kill shelter I have selected to support. I walked the building and observed the cats are fed and watered. All cats get spayed or newtered. One thing that haunts me is that most of the cats have eye problems, There are rooms where cats are kept with URI's, but certainly airborn dasieses innoculate all residents. It came to mind that all these cats need to be on antibiotics. This is impossible if it is administered the way I would administer it to my cats. Is there a feed product that has antibiotics in it so all resident cats get dosed at feeding? Is there a company that would custom blend this food? I think this would help a lot of no kill shelters across the country. Anybody in the know?
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60 Sick Cats
- Thread starter sailfish
- Start Date
What you most likely witnessed is a massive outbreak of the herpes virus that infects 95% of the cats in the world. Almost all cats are carriers and some have chronic flare-ups. Stress is the trigger for the virus to become active and runny eyes is the first sign. Sneezing is next.
Antibiotics do nothing to quell the virus and should only be used if there are signs or there is the risk of a secondary bacterial infection. Antibiotics simply don't work on viruses, but if the cat developes bacterial infections due to a compromised immune system, antibiotics should be administered.
I'm sure the shelter conditions cause the cats a huge amount of stress and once the immune system is compromised that nasty herpes virus kicks in.
Vigilant sanitation and less crowding is the key to fixing the problem. The cats clean their eyes with their paws, then they walk all over eveything. They sneeze, sending virus laden droplets airborne and they sneeze on common surfaces and other cats come in contact with the virus. Handlers petting infected cats spread the active virus to other cats.
It's not an easy issue to solve. Good luck.
Antibiotics do nothing to quell the virus and should only be used if there are signs or there is the risk of a secondary bacterial infection. Antibiotics simply don't work on viruses, but if the cat developes bacterial infections due to a compromised immune system, antibiotics should be administered.
I'm sure the shelter conditions cause the cats a huge amount of stress and once the immune system is compromised that nasty herpes virus kicks in.
Vigilant sanitation and less crowding is the key to fixing the problem. The cats clean their eyes with their paws, then they walk all over eveything. They sneeze, sending virus laden droplets airborne and they sneeze on common surfaces and other cats come in contact with the virus. Handlers petting infected cats spread the active virus to other cats.
It's not an easy issue to solve. Good luck.
If the shelter gives a serving of wet food daily, they could mix in 1/4 tsp. of L-Lysine per cat to help boost the immune system.
They may already have the lysine on hand. One vet I've used said she buys it by the 5 gallon pail.
They may already have the lysine on hand. One vet I've used said she buys it by the 5 gallon pail.
Yes, that's a good idea.Originally Posted by tru
If the shelter gives a serving of wet food daily, they could mix in 1/4 tsp. of L-Lysine per cat to help boost the immune system.
They may already have the lysine on hand. One vet I've used said she buys it by the 5 gallon pail.
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #5
I'm trying to digest the situation. The effort to save these cats must be overwhelming. The cats certainly are sick. URI's, Herpes, Parasites I'm sure There seems to be about 7 good sizes rooms with the cats divided up in each. Here's how I see it. These seem to be dead end last chance cats. Throwing vetanarian ethics out the window to treat each cat as an indavidual, Perhaps it would be better to dose all the cats in their food or water with antibiotics to treat the URI's It would cost too much and be near impossible to treat ech one as a one on one method. I just looked around a bit and it seems that horses take some of the same antibiotics that cats do. I bet it would be a lot cheaper to buy the large animal dose.. do some math and treat them. Same with the wormer. Echinatia and L-yzine certainly would be included in the mix somehow.
I just seems so hopeless that even if you treated these cats that way and it worked in would come another cat with URI and it would spread right through the house again. So I would expect that you would have to treat them several times a year wether thay need it or not. I'm probably way out in left field here but soloutions are found by talking about things. Any input or ideas would be great to hear.
I just seems so hopeless that even if you treated these cats that way and it worked in would come another cat with URI and it would spread right through the house again. So I would expect that you would have to treat them several times a year wether thay need it or not. I'm probably way out in left field here but soloutions are found by talking about things. Any input or ideas would be great to hear.
