New Foster(failure) Mom And 2 Small Kittens. Help?

[Bug 'n Co]

We live where it is very rural. Wanted a couple kittens to raise outdoors to keep down rodents. We have a friend who runs a 5o1(c)3 or whatever the code is, animal rescue and cat sanctuary. She was watching our dog while we were out of town for a few days. When we went to pick up the dog, my fiance mentioned we were looking for 2 kittens, and she got very excited. Asked us to take 2 brown tabbies who were brought in a couple days prior. They are still nursing, so could we take momma too until they wean? Being shorthaired brown tabbies, they probably wouldn't get adopted and would stay at the sanctuary for their whole lives unless we took them.

Kittens are a little shy but coming around. Momma is very sweet, and very very skinny. No doubt someone's pet who was dumped when she showed up with the little ones in tow. As long as momma either plays nice with our chickens or our indoor cat, we will be keeping her.

Momma is very very skinny and has an upset stomach. Possibly from stress, possibly from abrupt diet change, possibly something else. We have had the 3 for about 2 days now. Any ideas of how to settle her stomach and get her to put on weight? Very, very rural area, so some supplies may not be availabe to us. Tried offering raw, but momma had no interest. Just doing kibble and wet food, tho we will keep trying to get her to take raw. Have given bene bac probiotic. Need to worm her(rescue gave us panacur to use), but have held off due to her stomach being so upset. They all had a massive flea infestation, but were given a spot-on treatment and that seems to have taken care of it.

 

[StefanZ]

Can you get raw goats milk? If you dont have problems with salomonella on eggs, you can mix in a yolk with this goats milk. Could help here. Bene Bac is very good probiotic.

 

[StefanZ]

Could we get pics? If mpmma is of a natural slender type!??

 

[Bug 'n Co]

We sold our goats a few months ago. :/ we do have some powdered "all species" milk replacer somewhere. And we may still have a small bag of raw goat colostrum in the freezer somewhere. Would either of these be ok?

Momma is hard to photograph. She is very attention starved. She eats well when given fresh canned(fancy feast), kibble(don't know the brand), and some weird sauce thing that the rescue gave us. We are almost thru the fancy feast canned stuff and whatever the kibble is, but have boxes and boxes of the sauce packets. The rescue doesn't use them(too much packaging), so our friend gave us as many boxes of it as we could carry, lol. There was a lot going on when we picked up the dog and the 3 cats so we still need to get back in touch with her to clarify a few things. For example I think the lighter kitten is for sure a boy, but the darker one? Probably a boy but maybe female? But that isn't as important as getting momma's digestion in control and improving all of their baseline health.

Momma is the most poorly of the 3, she did well raising the 2 littlies, though I do wonder if she started with more.

 

[danteshuman]

I hope mom’s stomach settles. I would call your friend and ask her what they fed her. I would also explain her tummy problems and why you have held off on the de-wormer. Perhaps they can shed some insight?

I agree with trying probiotics. I would try food with as few ingredients as possible. It might be the food pouches that are doing it if she wasn’t eating them before. Also my boy gets the runs when he visits his brother and porks out on dry food instead of just eating his usual 1/5 a cup a day. So if you are feeding her more or less dry food then normal, that might be it. Lastly is she on kitten food? If she is nursing kittens she needs kitten food.

 

[Bug 'n Co]

I know she at least needs kitten food, I used to do foster/rescue work with feral kittens when I lived in the city. Move 500 miles away and the first locals we met happened to do animal rescue. Lmao, just can't get away from doing rescue it seems, not that I am complaining... the animals out here even with owners are often in rough shape.

The 3 food types listed are what the rescue gave us-presumably what they fed her other than the sauce packs. The problem is her known history is 4 days long. 2 days with us, 2 with the rescue. So what she ate at the rescue may not be what she ate prior to then. She and her kittens showed up on a good samaratin's porch, samaratin brought them to rescue. This is not at all like in the city/town/whatever with mandatory stray holds and such. Things are different out here in the forest.

We tried the local feed store for kitten food. They only had 1 kind of cat food in 20 lb bags. I haven't looked at it but my guess is that it is not adequate. We are going to town in about a half hour to pick up my brother at the airport(coming for a visit). Maybe we can find a shop there that has kitten food. Literally there isn't even a petcosmart here, so real guess if they will have kitten food. That's why I really hope mom will take to raw soon, it's the best option we have tbh.

Maybe TSC would have something acceptable.

 

[Sarthur2]

How old are the kittens? Are they still nursing? If so, mama will gain weight after they stop nursing and she is spayed. Will the rescue spay and neuter mom and kittens for you?

When you say her stomach is upset, is she having diarrhea? What does it look like? If so, she may have parasites. Not worms, but intestinal parasites.

Is mom given as much to eat as she wants right now?

Also, boiled chicken and plain white rice is good for cat tummies. No onion or spices, just a little salt. And the broth is excellent too. She can also have plain yogurt. The calcium is good for her and the yogurt may settle her stomach.

Do Amazon or Chewy deliver in your area? If so, you can order Purina kitten chow and whatever else you need online.

Thank you for taking in this little family!

B Bug 'n Co

 

[Bug 'n Co]

Nothing delivers here, our PO box is close to 10 miles away, but we can have things delivered there thru usps as long as it isn't raining we can get out. Based on eye devolopment and kitten size, I'd say they are no younger than 4.5 weeks and no older than 6.5 weeks. Hard to tell since lack of nutrition may have stunted their growth.

Stinky frequent diarrhea. Mom gets as much as she wants, fresh food 3-4×a day but the bowl is never empty. Rescue will spay mom when kittens weaned and kittens when they are old enough.

Think we should go ahead and do the panacur, will that help her you think?

 

[Sarthur2]

Yes, go ahead and give her the panacur. If that does not solve her problem I can recommend other treatment avenues.

 

[Bug 'n Co]

Ok. Here is the update.

Stopped in at tractor supply and grabbed a bag of Blue Wilderness kitten kibble and some more canned food. Got home just in time to see momma pooping out some VERY liquid poo followed by mucus that was rosey tinted. Got in touch with the rescue and went over there. Only just got back home. We got 3 different medicines for her. Just scruffed her and gave her the first... started with an M I think, but do not remember the name. They also asked us to go ahead and do the panacur and also gave us some albon I think was the name of it. Thick yellowish liquid that smells vaugely of caramel or rum or butterscotch or something.

Momma did not seem to like the m medicine one bit and spat some out. :/ hopefully she still got enough to help her. She is now drinking water to get that yicky taste out of her mouth. Going to text the friend who runs the rescue to see if we are supposed also to give her the other two medicines tonight or space them out, in all the distractions and the chatting there I honestly don't remember if she said to do all 3 tonight or to space them out.. she said the panacur could be continued 3-5 days, and the albon for up to 10 I think. We have the specifics of those written down(dose and duration), but not if we should do them together or one after the other or what.

 

[StefanZ]

We sold our goats a few months ago. :/ we do have some powdered "all species" milk replacer somewhere. And we may still have a small bag of raw goat colostrum in the freezer somewhere. Would either of these be ok?

Both should be OK, the kmr because its easy digestible (even if a specific kmr for cats is best), and the colostrum should help some too.
Yet, if you can get raw goats milk would be good. Nutritions and all that.

Also, if you are often rescuer, it may be good to have this colostrum in reserve for infants.

If she has much diarrheas, she need to compensate the salt losses.
Pedialyte is good; if bough, clear flavorless pedialyte for babies is best.

If homemade - you can essentially sprinkle a little of minerale kitchen salt into her water or over her food. As she is adult and not terminally ill, you dont need to bother with the glucose sugar part.

A home made pedialyte useful with diarrheas is made from rice.

You take some white rice and lotsa of water. And you overboil the rice at least twice the normal cooking time.
You take this water, containing glucose sugar and some carbos, and have some minerale kitchen salt! Voilá!

You can use minerale water as the salt source. You see on the label if it contain lotsa of different salts.

These recipes works also for humans, so its an useful knowledge. (but do contact your doctor).

 

[Sarthur2]

I would suggest not giving her everything all at once - same day but after different meals. The “M” drug is probably metronidazole. It’s an anti-parasite/antibiotic and very effective.

The Albon is an antibiotic and will cure any intestinal bacterial infections.

The panacur will cure giardia which is a protozoan infection.

All 3 are excellent and over time should clear up her problems but may affect her appetite and make her feel puny. Can even cause diarrhea, but that’s a side effect that will go away. If she was stray for a time she probably ate garbage and picked up whatever is causing her issues.

The Blue Wilderness kitten food is excellent!

 

[Bug 'n Co]

We are currently calling them Thor(lighter kitten), Loki(darker kitten, and Jord(Mommacat). They needed strong names.

Jord quit eating the night I posted last. We were honestly worried we might lose her. Put a pinch of salt and a small handful of white sugar in her water, waited for that medicine to do its work, and by the morning she was eating again. She is back to asking for food and talking to me when I walk in the room. Have not given her the albon or panacur yet, there were issues with weighing her. But we have that figured out now, and will weigh and medicate her tonight.

Loki was/is acting like one of his legs is bothering him. Must be just bruised or something. He will walk on it and nothing feels broken, but he complains about it when one of the others sits on him, and at first was limping. It is improving, but still seems to bother him a smidge.

Between the three of them they *just* about polished off a big can of 4health cat food mixed with probiotics and one of those packets of cat gravy just a moment ago. Now Jord is grooming herself while the kittens are napping snuggled up to her. Jord seems to like the dry Blue Wilderness kitten food and has switched to it easily from whatever kibble it was that the rescue sent over. Stomach still upset, but back to (very) soft stools without blood in them.

 

[danteshuman]

I like their names. Is Loki a trouble maker? Can we see pictures of their cuteness?

I hope she is over the hump.

 

[Sarthur2]

It sounds like the metronidazole is working. How many days is it to be given? You may want to wait on the other drugs since her tummy is so upset. It comes in tablets too, which might be easier for her to take than the liquid.