Weird Story... What Could Of Happened?

tiffr

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Okay so I have 2 five week old kittens. They have a dome bed, water, food, litter box and blanket in their kennel/crate. I fed them before going to sleep last night at about 10.... at 2:00 am I woke up from hearing screaming. My poor baby, Dobby was laying next to his litter box, screaming at the top of his lungs. I immediately grab him and he is soaked. I mean dripping wet. He was lethargic and he could not lift his head, it was just hanging there. I took him to a vet and they didn't know what was wrong, but knew he had severe hypothermia. His temp was below 90, their thermometer would drop to 90 and then turn off. They stuck him under some heaters and said after they warmed him up they were going to do test to find the real problem. Anyways, they sent me home.


He is still at the vet, but he is eating, walking, and his temp was normal. Nothing else was wrong except severe hypothermia. They say he most likely fell in his water bowl... as I look in his cage, he could not have fallen in.... it is full.

This is kind of weird, right? How is this possible? He will be coming over this afternoon we hope.

Oh and we will be getting clip on bowls now.
 

Sarthur2

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Five-week-old kittens barely need a water bowl if they are eating wet food slurry. They get their moisture from the many slurry feedings per day from a flat plate.

He may have been wet from his own urine.

Glad he's okay now.
 
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tiffr

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Well I put a water bowl in there because when they are out, they drink my other cats water.
 

Willowy

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At that age they are pretty vulnerable to any number of things. Usually their mama would keep them out of trouble but orphans do find a way to get themselves into jams. So it's believable that he got wet somehow and was unable to dry himself and got hypothermia. If that's all that was wrong he got lucky. Glad to hear he's feeling better!

If you think they should have a water bowl, make it very small and shallow. That may not have been the problem (as mentioned, it could have been urine---baby kittens don't have a strong odor yet) but I've also heard of young kittens drowning in their water bowls so you really need to be careful. Personally I'd just add extra water to their food instead of taking the risk. They're pretty uncoordinated until around 7 or 8 weeks.
 

StefanZ

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You mention your other (adult?) cat. Could the other adult cat be involved?

You got two excellent answers here above. Another possbility could be if he got scared by this adult cat, and wetted himself, got cold and collapsed by sheer exhaustion after the maximal adrenaline shock...

Observe, what the adult did wasnt not a full scale serious attack - he would be bitten into pieces / or shaken to death. But it could be for example a rogue mounting try. Or even a very rough dominace thing.

But if you can rule out this for sure, its something said above.
 
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tiffr

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At that age they are pretty vulnerable to any number of things. Usually their mama would keep them out of trouble but orphans do find a way to get themselves into jams. So it's believable that he got wet somehow and was unable to dry himself and got hypothermia. If that's all that was wrong he got lucky. Glad to hear he's feeling better!

If you think they should have a water bowl, make it very small and shallow. That may not have been the problem (as mentioned, it could have been urine---baby kittens don't have a strong odor yet) but I've also heard of young kittens drowning in their water bowls so you really need to be careful. Personally I'd just add extra water to their food instead of taking the risk. They're pretty uncoordinated until around 7 or 8 weeks.
The water bowl is very small. It's like less than an inch deep.
 
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tiffr

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You mention your other (adult?) cat. Could the other adult cat be involved?

You got two excellent answers here above. Another possbility could be if he got scared by this adult cat, and wetted himself, got cold and collapsed by sheer exhaustion after the maximal adrenaline shock...

Observe, what the adult did wasnt not a full scale serious attack - he would be bitten into pieces / or shaken to death. But it could be for example a rogue mounting try. Or even a very rough dominace thing.

But if you can rule out this for sure, its something said above.
My adult cats are in a different room. I put my fosters in my room with the door closed.

I just don't understand because the water dish is less than an inch deep and I only fill it like half way because kittens could fall in it or they can spill it. Also, the water dish was on the other side of the cage when I found him with water still in it. There wasn't enough water in there to get him soaked. It must of been urine.
 
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