Hello!
I am fostering a new litter of kittens, these ones are 6 weeks as of today and are from an outdoor/feral cat. The first litter I fostered was with me from day 1 so having little older kittens from outside has given me a new set of problems that I'm not sure how to deal with.
First off, with them having lived outside for over a month, they have fleas. I have bathed them and gotten I wanna say all of the fleas off, it wasn't bad maybe like 10 total out of all 4 of them. Should I be worried that there is an infestation on them? I know I can't give them anything for a few more weeks, I have never dealt with fleas with any animal so I'm not sure what to look for or anything. I combed with a flea comb and didn't see any of the "dirt" but I'd rather be safe than sorry. My friend said that the mom wears a flea collar, which is why I assume there wasn't a whole lot of fleas on them, but I don't know how flea collars work either. Squirmy kittens are also difficult to thoroughly comb, so I'm not sure how good of a job I did.
Another issue, one of them is smaller than the rest, the runt, and with my last litter, I simply bottle-fed that one extra. But since these have never had a bottle or anything, it is really hard to feed the smaller one extra. This one also gets "stuck" when eating, suckling the gruel/formula mixture. Mom stopped letting them nurse at about 5 weeks so when I tried a bottle, it doesn't suckle on it and just chews it. The syringe kinda works but the kitten still pulls away hard and doesn't like to have the syringe in its mouth. Despite being small, this one is the spunkiest and very playful so maybe they are just small?
The runt, my friend mentioned that he thinks it's sick, and it does sneeze but doesn't have the crusty stuff since I cleaned it when I got them. I noticed that the nose seems smaller and kinda more closed if that makes sense, so maybe it's from that, it's eyes are also closer together too compared to the other kittens. All of them have good energy and are eager to eat during feedings. They do have slight diarrhea but that may be my fault for over feeding them, my dummy brain got stuck in the every 4 hours feedings but looking it up it should be every 6 according to feeding guides online. I already dewormed them once, none have bloated tummies, and overall seem in good health. I plan to get them checked out once I have enough saved up from donations (my friend donated 50 dollars I could cry). Another did have a crusted closed eye randomly over night, but I think it was because I had to emergency change the litter because Chewy's delivery was delayed for 4 days and that litter even got me a bit messed up from the smell. I changed the litter back to the usual one I used and that was the only time the eye was crusted on one kitten.
Just a random thought, I am weirdly obssessed/addicted to fostering kittens lol. Like I might start volunteering at my local shelter now just to get my itty bitty kitty fix once these ones are older and adopted. I still have 2 from the first litter I fostered, but something about the little mews when they are hungry makes my heart melt.
I am fostering a new litter of kittens, these ones are 6 weeks as of today and are from an outdoor/feral cat. The first litter I fostered was with me from day 1 so having little older kittens from outside has given me a new set of problems that I'm not sure how to deal with.
First off, with them having lived outside for over a month, they have fleas. I have bathed them and gotten I wanna say all of the fleas off, it wasn't bad maybe like 10 total out of all 4 of them. Should I be worried that there is an infestation on them? I know I can't give them anything for a few more weeks, I have never dealt with fleas with any animal so I'm not sure what to look for or anything. I combed with a flea comb and didn't see any of the "dirt" but I'd rather be safe than sorry. My friend said that the mom wears a flea collar, which is why I assume there wasn't a whole lot of fleas on them, but I don't know how flea collars work either. Squirmy kittens are also difficult to thoroughly comb, so I'm not sure how good of a job I did.
Another issue, one of them is smaller than the rest, the runt, and with my last litter, I simply bottle-fed that one extra. But since these have never had a bottle or anything, it is really hard to feed the smaller one extra. This one also gets "stuck" when eating, suckling the gruel/formula mixture. Mom stopped letting them nurse at about 5 weeks so when I tried a bottle, it doesn't suckle on it and just chews it. The syringe kinda works but the kitten still pulls away hard and doesn't like to have the syringe in its mouth. Despite being small, this one is the spunkiest and very playful so maybe they are just small?
The runt, my friend mentioned that he thinks it's sick, and it does sneeze but doesn't have the crusty stuff since I cleaned it when I got them. I noticed that the nose seems smaller and kinda more closed if that makes sense, so maybe it's from that, it's eyes are also closer together too compared to the other kittens. All of them have good energy and are eager to eat during feedings. They do have slight diarrhea but that may be my fault for over feeding them, my dummy brain got stuck in the every 4 hours feedings but looking it up it should be every 6 according to feeding guides online. I already dewormed them once, none have bloated tummies, and overall seem in good health. I plan to get them checked out once I have enough saved up from donations (my friend donated 50 dollars I could cry). Another did have a crusted closed eye randomly over night, but I think it was because I had to emergency change the litter because Chewy's delivery was delayed for 4 days and that litter even got me a bit messed up from the smell. I changed the litter back to the usual one I used and that was the only time the eye was crusted on one kitten.
Just a random thought, I am weirdly obssessed/addicted to fostering kittens lol. Like I might start volunteering at my local shelter now just to get my itty bitty kitty fix once these ones are older and adopted. I still have 2 from the first litter I fostered, but something about the little mews when they are hungry makes my heart melt.
