justginger
Ideal_Rock
- Joined
- May 11, 2009
- Messages
- 3,712
She and Jockey are at another carer's house and seemingly doing ok. Both eating and drinking, plus getting subcutaneous fluid injections. They're not having such severe diarrhea, and Filly gained nearly 45 grams in one day which is great. Of course, they're not even close to being out of the woods, especially since her poo culture that my DH set up at work yesterday came back today...
And it grew Salmonella typhimurium. Bad for little kitties. Not much you can do to treat it, just keep up their fluid levels while they try to fight it off themselves. I phoned the vet I had been dealing with and she hit the roof. Started going on and on and on (and ON!) about how it's nearly a notifiable disease, every other animal that I ever have in my house is going to get it, I need to be wearing a gown and gloves when I have anything to do with any of the kittens, and her recommendation was euthanasia. I asked if we continue to keep them hydrated if they will clear themselves of the infection and she emphatically said no. It must be treated with an odd set of antibiotics that can have potentially nasty side effects on young animals. So, as I said, her recommendation was euthanasia.
Extreme for me. Very extreme. I've had these kittens pooping for weeks now, and I've taken next to no precautions. They've mingled with all our animals, they've done silly kitten things like stepped in their own poo and tracked it around the house in the night, so hours passed before it was cleaned up. I've been wiping their bottoms for them without stringent hand sanitizing (of course I washed, but not properly). And no one else is ill. We've got two humans with normal poo. Two adult dogs with normal poo. Two adult cats with normal poo. A 10 month old cat with normal poo. Two kittens from the same litter with normal weights and normal poo. One kitten that is only about 20% below normal weight with normal poo. And then we've got one kitten with juicy poo, that is underweight. All are eating well, playing, alert, happy, and the smallest ones are gaining weight. The two sickest have been moved to a carer who has them in isolation and is willing to continue keeping up their fluids until they start to heal on their own. I just think that killing them all is extremely rash. Even if we DO get sick from them, S. typhimurium is not disastrous. It's a pain in the butt, quite literally. But unless we were very old or immunocompromised, we'd just poop for a few days and get over it.
So I don't think they're going to be PTS. Every piece of literature I've found online says that it can be resolved on its own as long as fluids are kept up and the kitten is eating. They continue to carry and shed this bacteria for weeks afterwards though, so they will not be able to be rehomed for a few months at least. The cat coordinator for our rescue group (who is the one taking care of Filly and Jockey) is going to be consulting with two other vets that we regularly use to see what they think. My gut instinct is that this vet is an alarmist. If we can nurse puppies back from parvo in our homes, we can deal with Salmonella.
Please do keep them in your thoughts though - it will be a tough battle for these little guys and I don't think any of us are confident that they're necessarily going to make it. We want to give them an honest chance though, so euthanasia at this point is not an option.
And it grew Salmonella typhimurium. Bad for little kitties. Not much you can do to treat it, just keep up their fluid levels while they try to fight it off themselves. I phoned the vet I had been dealing with and she hit the roof. Started going on and on and on (and ON!) about how it's nearly a notifiable disease, every other animal that I ever have in my house is going to get it, I need to be wearing a gown and gloves when I have anything to do with any of the kittens, and her recommendation was euthanasia. I asked if we continue to keep them hydrated if they will clear themselves of the infection and she emphatically said no. It must be treated with an odd set of antibiotics that can have potentially nasty side effects on young animals. So, as I said, her recommendation was euthanasia.
Extreme for me. Very extreme. I've had these kittens pooping for weeks now, and I've taken next to no precautions. They've mingled with all our animals, they've done silly kitten things like stepped in their own poo and tracked it around the house in the night, so hours passed before it was cleaned up. I've been wiping their bottoms for them without stringent hand sanitizing (of course I washed, but not properly). And no one else is ill. We've got two humans with normal poo. Two adult dogs with normal poo. Two adult cats with normal poo. A 10 month old cat with normal poo. Two kittens from the same litter with normal weights and normal poo. One kitten that is only about 20% below normal weight with normal poo. And then we've got one kitten with juicy poo, that is underweight. All are eating well, playing, alert, happy, and the smallest ones are gaining weight. The two sickest have been moved to a carer who has them in isolation and is willing to continue keeping up their fluids until they start to heal on their own. I just think that killing them all is extremely rash. Even if we DO get sick from them, S. typhimurium is not disastrous. It's a pain in the butt, quite literally. But unless we were very old or immunocompromised, we'd just poop for a few days and get over it.
So I don't think they're going to be PTS. Every piece of literature I've found online says that it can be resolved on its own as long as fluids are kept up and the kitten is eating. They continue to carry and shed this bacteria for weeks afterwards though, so they will not be able to be rehomed for a few months at least. The cat coordinator for our rescue group (who is the one taking care of Filly and Jockey) is going to be consulting with two other vets that we regularly use to see what they think. My gut instinct is that this vet is an alarmist. If we can nurse puppies back from parvo in our homes, we can deal with Salmonella.
Please do keep them in your thoughts though - it will be a tough battle for these little guys and I don't think any of us are confident that they're necessarily going to make it. We want to give them an honest chance though, so euthanasia at this point is not an option.