Found sick stray

[Timewarpcat]

A stray kitty has been around my rural place a few days, and it turns out this is not a feral cat. It's a very friendly cat.

The kitty has eye discharge, the eye membranes area showing, it sneezes a bit. It acts totally healthy otherwise. It's a little thin.

Kitty wants in the house! Very much so.

We have a cold snap coming again, below freezing.

I have an outdoor heated cat bed I just set up in a sheltered place and I fed kitty.

Do you think it's safe to bring kitty in and put it in the basement for a couple weeks? I also have a pop up lightly insulated cat tent with heated cat bed I could put in the garage, but we have our ATV in there and kitty will be disturbed by that once a day. If kitty jumps around a lot in the garage, it's not the best place, with various tools and some greasy parts. No antifreeze or liquids in drain pans etc.

I have two kitties with a bizarre conditiin of toxoplasmosis in the brain that I'm treating for seizures with phenobarbitol and with clindamycin. One kitty is weaning off steroids and both are weaning off gabapentin. So at least one kitty is immune compromised.

My plan is to take stray kitty to the vet and when it's well, find an adoption place. The chance it's a lost cat is very very low. I live in a very wild area with neighbors a half mile apart or more.

My vet is super busy. It will be a few days to get kitty in.

Thanks for comments!

 

[Kieka]

As long as you can keep the kitty isolated from the rest of your cats, you'd be helping the stray out tremendously. I'd encourage washing hands and having basement shoes to be safe. It sounds like an upper respiratory infection or something similar which would be contagious.

 

[Timewarpcat]

I decided to keep kitty in the garage. I´m not sure that will work. It jumped up way high on top of a cabinet and I don´t know if it will stay in the heated cat cubby or not. It jumped down when I called to it. We´re going to set up a remote camera to monitor. It wants to be cuddled with all the time and cries incessantly for that, but I have my sick kitties in the house to take care of, too. I hope it doesn´t have a fatal disease. Its eyes look awful. I don´t want more kitties, I have 3 already, but I might just keep this one. I have a vet appointment on Monday. It´ll be a lovely kitty if it can recover. It´s orange with a white face and paws, very adorable, except the eyes are very gross. Last time I found a kitty like that, it had FIP. Another one like that I found when I was a girl, had distemper. But I read online that it can be something that isn´t serious and the eyes can look like that. It had ticks so I used Frontline on it.

 

[Furballsmom]

How are things going?

 

[Timewarpcat]

I took him to the vet and she says he is about 2 years old and a rough and tumble outdoor cat. One eye is badly scratched and he probably has no vision in that eye. She thought from fighting with other tomcats. She put a spot on worm treatment on him and gave me 2 syringes of meds for worms, to be given 10 days apart. She said he was really full of worms and that's why he eats and drinks so much. She also vaccinated him and there is a followup in 3 to 4 weeks with that. He is negative for FIP and leukemia. And I'm to give him doxycycline for 10 days, twice a day.

He's a real sweetie pie, but he nipped my ankle really hard yesterday. I have a video camera in the garage to keep track of him, and it was obviously a too hard play nip. So I got him a big toy he can wrestle and kick. He doesn't know how to play with toys yet and I work with him on that. His fur is getting nice. He really likes the heated feral cat hut in the garage. I have a blanketed play area on thick cardboard so we can sit together on the floor.

I really don't want another cat because I have 3, but it seems really hard to bring a stray to a shelter now? I have to make an appointment 45 days in advance. What? I used to just drop off strays along with a donation (gave them vet attention if I thought it was needed).

And now there is another stray in the yard and I wonder if someone moved away and abandoned their farm cats. This one is probably a girl and she runs away at this time. I've never had 2 strays in one year like this. I'm very remote.

 

[Timewarpcat]

I took him to the vet and she says he is about 2 years old and a rough and tumble outdoor cat. One eye is badly scratched and he probably has no vision in that eye. She thought from fighting with other tomcats. She put a spot on worm treatment on him and gave me 2 syringes of meds for worms, to be given 10 days apart. She said he was really full of worms and that's why he eats and drinks so much. She also vaccinated him and there is a followup in 3 to 4 weeks with that. He is negative for FIP and leukemia. And I'm to give him doxycycline for 10 days, twice a day.

He's a real sweetie pie, but he nipped my ankle really hard yesterday. I have a video camera in the garage to keep track of him, and it was obviously a too hard play nip. So I got him a big toy he can wrestle and kick. He doesn't know how to play with toys yet and I work with him on that. His fur is getting nice. He really likes the heated feral cat hut in the garage. I have a blanketed play area on thick cardboard so we can sit together on the floor.

I really don't want another cat because I have 3, but it seems really hard to bring a stray to a shelter now? I have to make an appointment 45 days in advance. What? I used to just drop off strays along with a donation (gave them vet attention if I thought it was needed).

And now there is another stray in the yard and I wonder if someone moved away and abandoned their farm cats. This one is probably a girl and she runs away at this time. I've never had 2 strays in one year like this. I'm very remote.

Also the vet said because my own cats have toxoplasmosis in the brain, that I should keep this cat away from them just in case, and thus it's a good thing he's used to the outdoors. She said if I want to keep him that I should wait and see how the treatment goes, at least a couple months. I have to decide what to do, he needs booster shots in 3 to 4 weeks and I'm spending an awful lot at the vet with all of this. He should be neutered too.