Isolation Period For Stray Kitten After Upper Respiratory Vaccination?

[tobby]

Captured 8 week old feral kitten on 10-26-30.

Taken to vet 10-30-20.

He was wormed and given a distemper and upper respiratory vaccination. He has an occasional cough or sneeze likely related to the mild upper respiratory infection.

Applied Frontline Gold treatment on 10-30-20 for fleas and related insects.

Scheduled for a 12-2-20 bath here using kitchen sink sprayer to remove flea “dust”, as the vet put it, from his hair (i.e., poop). The vet said not use shampoo such as Dawn as it might interfere with the Frontline Gold.

The vet wants to see him at 12 weeks, around 11-29-20, for a second worming and second distemper and upper respiratory vaccination.

The vet seemed to think it would be O.K. to bring him in the home and place him in a room isolated from other cats in 2-3 days after the Frontline had done its work and after he had a bath and was dried off.

Thats brings up the question of how fast acting is the upper respiratory vaccination? Online sources suggest a 1-2 week isolation of new cats from cats already in the house to prevent possible spread of infectious diseases.

Shouldn’t he be kept isolated in the garage for 2 weeks, with only a temporary trip inside the home for a bath and drying off?

 

[neely]

Shouldn’t he be kept isolated in the garage for 2 weeks, with only a temporary trip inside the home for a bath and drying off?

I guess my first question would be what the weather is like where you live, e.g. our garage has been below freezing temps. at night so obviously that would be harmful. Extreme heat would be another problem. Are you planning to keep the kitten? If so, is it possible to isolate him in a separate room of the house like the bathroom where you could visit and interact with him?

BTW, thank you for rescuing him.

 

[fionasmom]

I did have to isolate Kate when I rescued her due to a URI. It was summer and she stayed in a very large wire dog carrier on my back patio with a fan on her and a heavy tarp to shade her in addition to the plants and trees. When I was cleared to bring her in the house she was not quite well and it did spread, so I do encourage caution. But you have to put the kitten in a safe, comfortable place during this time.

 

[tobby]

Thanks for the replies!

Our attached four car garage and and small shop, which we built ourselves, is constructed from 2 x 6 insulated walls with insulated garage doors. Two heater vents from our wood burning furnace, or gas furnace backup, divert some heat into the garage so it typically remains 15-20 degrees hotter than the outside temperature.

Two years ago another mother abandoned three newborns in our garage. The largest was 4 ounces and the other two slightly less. One died of fading kitten syndrome during the hand feeding process near the time they open their eyes. The other two are now 12+ and 14+ pounds. Fortunately these kittens didn’t have any flees or respiratory infections. The two survivors did develop a eye infection that caused a crust to build up in their eyes during sleep, requiring us to wet the hair around the eyes and carefully reopen their eyes in order to place medicated drops in them.

We are reusing some the later kitten care techniques we developed from raising the previously abandoned kittens for the recent arrival.

The living quarters consist of a 24” x 24” cardboard box and a 18” x 18” box that are taped together and joined by a small doorway. Each has its flaps taped upward to extend the height of the boxes to just over 31”. A large 3/8” thick lid of cardboard, with a Visqueen plastic window in it, is weighted down over the two boxes to prevent escape.

Each box has a false cardboard bottom inserted in that is covered in 2” wide clear tape. This allows any spills to be cleaned up and protects the bottom fo the box. Worse case scenario would be to replace the false bottom as opposed to having the actual bottom of the box damaged. The smaller box has a litter box consisting of 9” x 12” double wall aluminum cake pan.

The bottom of the larger box bottom is covered by a folded thick rag rug. Additional linen covers the rug to act as a bed. A heating pad set on low has been embedded in the bedding linen. The heating pad is pulled to one corner so that its electrical cord can immediately exit through the side of the box via a tiny flap that is taped shut. The larger box contains a bowl for food. A separate water dish is placed on a washrag and shallow plastic tray to contain spills.

We have a separate 45” x 24” box on a 6 foot banquet table. Its sides are not as high as the other two boxes. A 4” wide overhang strip of cardboard has been added around the inner edges to prevent the kitten from grabbing the top edge of the box. Without the overhang this kitten, and the previous two kittens we raised, will attempt to escape the box by leaping upward and off a interior wall so as to grab hold of the edge of a wall. Once the edge of the box is grabbed they can pull themselves upward and escape.

The front portion of the box has a flap door the width of a adult torso and arms. The flap is folded down to play with the cat. The flap can be secured in a upright position with a piece of twine at either end. The flap also has a hinged overhang strip of cardboard attached to the top.

Every few hours we move the cat to the exercise box and secure its flap in a upright position. The weighted lid is moved from the two living quarters boxes to the exercise box while we perform maintenance such as cleaning the litter box, adding food and water and cleaning up any spills of liter with a small portable vac. The cat is then played with in the exercise box for various amounts of time ranging from 20 minutes to well over an hour and then transferred back to the living quarter boxes. Very intelligent little bugger - he will meow in the exercise box to tell us he wants to go back to the living quarter boxes to eat, drink or use the litter box.

We wear outer insulated jackets over our regular clothing, which stay in the garage, to prevent cross contamination. We also wash our hand with antibacterial soap upon entering the home. All rags are immediately washed. We use a separate pooper scooper and waste container to prevent cross contamination.

Surprisingly, the taming process only took 3 days. He initially shied away from the “big hands” coming toward him during the first 2 days, but he has never tried to bite, scratch or hiss in anger. I likely think this is due to the fact that he became somewhat accustomed to us bringing food and water to him and his mother on the porch during the past several weeks.

We would like to isolate him in the bathroom after giving him the required bath on 11-2-20 as the flea medication would have killed all the fleas. I am still concerned about the URI. He has has had his initial vaccination for distemper and URI and well as being dewormed, but these will repeated on or around 11-29-20. Our cats have all our shots; however, I am not sure if that protects them.

 

[fionasmom]

You have an amazing set up for the kitten and it is definitely climate controlled. Funny how he tells you when play time is over and he needs to go "home" again. What does your vet say about isolating the kitten? Your cats have had vaccines but the kitten did manifest some signs of an infection a few days ago? If it were me, I would assume that my vaccinated cats were safe but I would not let the kitten mingle with them but rather keep her confined to the bathroom and use caution as you have been doing with hand washing, etc.

One reason I kept Kate outside was that we had workmen in the house going all over and I was afraid that if I used a bathroom someone would open the door regardless; if it had been cold weather I would have kept her isolated in the bathroom and been very cautious with the infection. When I found her, she was way beyond the occasional cough or sneeze and was quite sick with the infection; it sounds as if your kitten did not have it so badly.