Because I have so many senior cats who need homes, I've been keeping my head low on the kitten front. There is, however, nothing you can do about the abandoned ones. A few weeks ago, one of my neighbors knocked on the door (or rather, Molly sounded the alarm when she walked up the path), because the French exchange students she was hosting had gone for a walk, and a kitten had attached herself to them, in the area of my farm.
The neighbor is allergic, so the kitten was not brought into her house, although they were feeding her. I stopped by later that day, and the sweet little thing was hiding under a car.
No problem finding this cutie a home, right?
Sigh.
Gracie has diarrhea. I figured "no big deal" but a standard worming did not clear it up. While I was traveling, she stayed with Ellen, a vet tech, who ran a fecal on her (negative), put her on a bland diet (no change), tried the kitty Pepto route (no change) and sent me home with FortiFlora. I have her on a chicken and rice diet with FortiFlora, and while there is some small improvement, it's still not a good stool. So if I don't get her straightened out soon, I won't have a kitten for adoption. I'll have a teenager.
Simple things are never simple, it seems.
She is a cutie, though, and Ellen fostered her twice to keep her own shy foster kitten company and help him come out of his shell. It's nice when I can shove animals off on other people, and it's actually not a burden, but a help.
I think I'll have her stool checked for giardia. I'm not sure that was done.
Susan, she is a beauty. A neighbor had an adult cat dumped on her many years ago that had the worst diarrhea I've ever encountered. After trying everything, with nothing working, she was tested again. Apparently there is a worm (have forgotten the name) that cats can get from eating either frogs or toads. And, I also can't remember what the vet prescribed, but thought I would throw that out there as a possibility.
ReplyDeleteThey don't shed giardia or coccidia in every bowel movement, making both hard to detect. I go by color and smell sometimes. Coccidia is notoriously stinky, often yellow or orange while giardia is often greenish and can cause temps. There is that heliobacteria too, out there, another cryptospiridium. I would assume it to be giardia or coccidia. You've had distemper there though, right? Hopefully she is vaccinated. I had some kittens once with a heliobacteria, but they did not get over the diarrhea. A vet said to try science diet tartar control. Its' huge round chunks, but for some reason, it worked, even though I had break the big round balls up for the kittens, who were teensy.
ReplyDeleteBoth Butterball and Apu had mucousy diarrhea when I adopted them from the shelter back in 1996. Test after test came back negative for everything. The vet finally suggested adding a quarter tsp of unflavored metamucil for Apu (a kitten) and a half tsp. for Butterball (an adult)a day. Neither would touch wet cat food so I put it in turkey baby food. Worked like a charm. Kept them on it for a few months and when I stopped it, the diarrhea never came back.
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