{"id":1334,"date":"2017-07-10T16:10:50","date_gmt":"2017-07-10T16:10:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lbpost.com\/articles\/life\/pets\/the-vet-is-in-foster-kitten-diaries-cleanup-on-aisle-six\/"},"modified":"2017-07-10T16:10:50","modified_gmt":"2017-07-10T16:10:50","slug":"the-vet-is-in-foster-kitten-diaries-cleanup-on-aisle-six","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/hi-lo\/pets\/the-vet-is-in-foster-kitten-diaries-cleanup-on-aisle-six","title":{"rendered":"Foster Kitten Diaries\u2014Cleanup on Aisle Six!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Dr. Meredith Kennedy, DVM, Long Beach Animal Hospital<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Kitten season is in full swing, and fosters are needed. Here\u2019s day six of Dr. Kennedy\u2019s experiences in fostering kittens. Hope it helps! (Hope you\u2019re fostering!)<\/i><\/p>\n

Raising orphaned kittens is a very rewarding experience, but when they have enteritis, we do have to stay on top of the hygiene issues.<\/p>\n

Enteritis is inflammation of the intestinal tract, causing diarrhea, dehydration, poor growth and sometimes nausea and vomiting. Kittens born to stray and outdoor cats have a significant risk of becoming infected with multiple intestinal parasites (worms) and viral and bacterial infections, and may even die from serious infection and diarrhea. How do we handle diarrhea in young kittens?<\/p>\n

Flicka, which means \u201clittle girl\u201d in Swedish, is our poster-child for kitty diarrhea, the smallest of that litter of four orphaned kittens dropped off at an animal hospital. Remember that most animal shelters cannot take in tiny kittens that require hand feeding. They simply don\u2019t have the personnel or resources, so most of these little sick neonates are unfortunately euthanized in those facilities with large cat populations so they don\u2019t suffer, unless they\u2019re pulled by a rescue willing to find a foster to care for them. If there are cat lovers who can foster a litter of young kittens, this provides them with the individual care they need to get to a healthy size and weight so they can eventually be adopted out.<\/p>\n

But what if you end up with a litter of kittens with diarrhea? It is manageable and will get better. Flicka and her littermates were pretty sorry-looking specimens when they were dropped off at 2 or 3 weeks of age. They were thin, dehydrated, caked with diarrhea, hungry and wailing. Tiny Flicka weighed only about half a pound. We got them started on fluids, feeding, deworming and antibiotics on their first day, but the next morning Flicka was collapsed, in shock and starting to have seizures from low blood sugar. She was simply too small to be able to cope with multiple intestinal infections.<\/p>\n

She was started on intravenous fluids supplemented with dextrose to bring her blood sugar back up. She was also given intravenous antibiotics to combat sepsis (infection spreading in the bloodstream). We wanted to give her a chance but also realized that keeping her alive if she wasn\u2019t responding would not be humane. She turned out to be a tough little cookie\u2014she was up on wobbly legs and trying to eat within a few hours. Within a few days she was off the IV fluids and back with her littermates.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s now up to almost three-quarters of a pound and doing well, but managing the diarrhea is a challenge. The kittens are too young to know how to clean themselves, so they get bathed in a plastic tub of warm soapy water and dried with a blow-dryer set on low. It\u2019s not practical in a home setting to let them out to run around until their hygiene is better controlled, so two cat carriers are used. Flicka and her sister Tortilla, a tortoiseshell, are in one carrier with a small litterbox, food and water, and get transferred to the second one after their bath.<\/p>\n

A combination of old towels and paper towels line the bottom, and a clean litterbox is provided. It\u2019s important to keep a clean litter box close by so they don\u2019t get into the habit of going outside<\/i> the box if it\u2019s too dirty. The first carrier\u2014the soiled one\u2014is then cleaned out and new bedding placed in. It\u2019s ready for the next transfer for when their current one is soiled. We continue this back and forth for a few days while their diarrhea and hygiene improve.<\/p>\n

Once they get better, they\u2019ll be allowed out to run around supervised for longer and longer periods of time. Diagnostics and appropriate treatment are essential in getting them back to good health, so we\u2019ll continue with how we diagnose and treat their infections.<\/p>\n

The Feline Diseases section<\/a> of our website has detailed information on many of these cat ailments.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

When it comes to pets, everyone loves a happy ending. A family saw Flicka at LBAH and took her home, where no doubt they\u2019ll all live happily ever after! Photo courtesy of Dr. Meredith Kennedy.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Raising orphaned kittens is a very rewarding experience, but when they have enteritis, we do have to stay on top of the hygiene issues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[388],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-1334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pets","tag-the-vet-is-in","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/133"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1334\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1334"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=1334"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}