A few weeks ago we took in a stray mom and her 6 kittens. She's nursing so I've been making sure she has extra food and water, the kittens are about 5- 6 weeks old and have started taking an interest in regular food canned and kitten chow. But the thing is I'm concerned about the mother having round worms and passing it to the kittens. In the 3 weeks we've had her she hasn't put on much weight except her belly. Her hips are extremely bony but she has a pronounce pot belly (which I know is a sign of round worms) her belly's soft, no diarrhea and I haven't seen any in the litter box, but I also know from experience that you might not see symptoms of round worm until it's to late. I know she's burning up calories feeding the kittens which seem to be ravenous all the time they will eat all the food I leave for them and still nurse. The kitten and mom seem in over all good health. Is this normal or should I be concerned?
I'm looking into ways to get her to the vet, but having issues. I can't afford it out of pocket and when I called our local SPCA they basically said tough we can put you on a waiting list to put the cats in our care but other wise we can't help you.
Any advice you can give would be greatly appreciated.
PS. I could probably get a dewormer from our vet w/o an appt, but since I don't know if that the problem for sure I wouldn't want to do anything that might make mom or babies sick. Also last time I did that they gave me the wrong type of dewormer, for my boys. They had round worms and the vet gave me meds for tapeworm which didn't cure round worm and then argued with me about it. Sorry still irks me.
I'm looking into ways to get her to the vet, but having issues. I can't afford it out of pocket and when I called our local SPCA they basically said tough we can put you on a waiting list to put the cats in our care but other wise we can't help you.
Any advice you can give would be greatly appreciated.
PS. I could probably get a dewormer from our vet w/o an appt, but since I don't know if that the problem for sure I wouldn't want to do anything that might make mom or babies sick. Also last time I did that they gave me the wrong type of dewormer, for my boys. They had round worms and the vet gave me meds for tapeworm which didn't cure round worm and then argued with me about it. Sorry still irks me.