I am fostering 3, 5 day old kittens. One kitten passed overnight, even though she had a good day yesterday, eating more and gaining weight, she didnt make it. Now another kitten is losing weight, When i got them on Tuesday, she was 88 grams, now shes 68 grams. over the last 24 hours, she eats about 2-3mls every 2-3 hours. She has pooped 2x yesterday, all good there. I dont know what else to do. I am now constantly checking her temp. I feel shes slowly fading away. Any advice?
-
Too many ads? Join our community of cat lovers now to reduce ads by 90%! Click here to join for free!
Fostering Orphaned Kittens! 1 dead, possibly another one soon!
- Thread starter shebaa
- Start Date
I suspect she is not getting enough food and is starving. A 5-day old kitten this tiny cannot go 3 hours between feedings!
Try feeding her 2mLs of formula every 2 hours on the dot, timed from the beginning of the feeding. In other words, if you feed at 1pm and it takes 15 minutes, the next feeding is at 3pm, not 3:15.
This will total 12 feedings and a total of 24mLs of formula. Since she’s 2.3 ounces (68 grams), she needs 8mLs of formula for every ounce she weighs, so 2.3 x 8 = 18.5mLs. That is a minimum, so feeding on the dot will help her to eat more and hopefully gain weight.
You must feed around the clock, setting an alarm to get up through the night.
I hope this is all she needs - more food.
Also, which brand kitten formula are you using? Are you mixing the ratio of one part powder to 2 parts water?
What color and consistency are her poops?
Try feeding her 2mLs of formula every 2 hours on the dot, timed from the beginning of the feeding. In other words, if you feed at 1pm and it takes 15 minutes, the next feeding is at 3pm, not 3:15.
This will total 12 feedings and a total of 24mLs of formula. Since she’s 2.3 ounces (68 grams), she needs 8mLs of formula for every ounce she weighs, so 2.3 x 8 = 18.5mLs. That is a minimum, so feeding on the dot will help her to eat more and hopefully gain weight.
You must feed around the clock, setting an alarm to get up through the night.
I hope this is all she needs - more food.
Also, which brand kitten formula are you using? Are you mixing the ratio of one part powder to 2 parts water?
What color and consistency are her poops?
Is she warm? Ie being actively warmed up? Heating pad, IR heating lamp?
Try to feed more often, because she doesnt manage to take much at each feeding.
Put in droplets of white caro syrup / glucose sugar on her gum, beneath the lip. Smear them in. Gives energhy and some calories.. Do so now and then...
What kmr do you use?
KMR in powder? Good if you can mix it not with water, but with clear baby pedialyte, this too gives some extra calories for free.
Can you get raw goats milk? This makes sometimes a difference...
Massage her with your forefinger. Pray...
ps.
Losing 20 grams in a day sounds VERRY much, unless she has violent diarrheas and hardly eats...
So its probable there is some fault in the weighting.
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #5
Foster program wanted me to bring her in, with sister too. Just yesterday i googled how many mls a day they need and also came up with 24mls. I then counted the mls from the day before, and all were eating at least that. one kitten, i counted i think it was 29mls. I just know they all were getting the minimum at least mls daily. I also been giving her the syrup stuff. poop reminded me of that syrup. thick brown stuff. I did feed the 2 remaining kitties before we left to the medical dept. and the sick one ate 2.75ml, i believe. Then checked her weight and actually gain 9 grams since her last feeding/weight check that was about 2.5 hours before. but at the waiting room, she was breathing hard. even times when it looked like she stopped breathing, I would just rub her back and chest and she would finally move a little. Also was having a hard time to get her temp up. Im just sad I couldnt help her. Hopefully the medical team can. The healthy kitten is a pig, strong, tries to stand, crawling everywhere so I have no worries for her, only if her sister makes it though. cause the healthy one will be alone which I assume will be hard to eventually keep her alive since orphaned kitties depend on each other for body heat. Praying they both make it
So you no longer have the kittens?
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #7
no. they are gonna keep me updated so i might get them back. it all depends what happens and what they say. if not i agreed that they can go to the next person for foster. but they will let me know first.
