A Tough Weekend

Looking after the kittens over the past weekend has pretty much been a full-time job (more full-time for Faith than me).

One of the reasons the Cats Protection Shelter were so desparate to foster the kittens was that they have had an outbreak of the Calici virus among their cats. It was hoped that our kittens hadn't caught it.

On Saturday we noticed that one of the kittens, Tiger, was limping. I assumed he'd just taken a bad fall off the sofa, but Faith was worried cos he seemed to be abit down too. We phoned the shelter and were told that limping was a sign of de-hydration, which was a symptom of Calici.

Faith and Catherine from the Cats Protection shelter tooks the poor little fella to the vets and he got an injection of anti-biotics which would last him 48 hours, so he'd need another one on Monday.

We also had to feed him, through a syringe, with "Super" food, that would keep his energy up, and give him a hydrating water mixture through a syringe. We kept him separate from the others in the bedroom.

Over the course of the day, 3 other kittens, Splodge, Spot and Stripe, started looking alittle run-down. So, another visit to the vets and 3 more injections later, we had a sick-bay of four little kittens, that we were trying to feed through a syringe as often as possible.

This went on all through Sunday, with pretty much constant feeding and looking after by Faith, and it made us appreiciate how easy it was to look after them before they got ill!

On late Sunday evening, Mo-Fo and Token were looking abit down, so it was obvious that they were all going to get this virus, although mummy cat Mogwai looked like she was avoiding it. We arranged for the vet to come and see them Monday, and I took the day off work to look after them.

On Monday, they all got the anti-biotic injections, and Catherine said that she had found somewhere else for them to stay while they were ill, as we couldn't look after them while we were at work. We will be getting them back when they are better, but Faith was sorry to see them go.
To be honest, I'm quite glad of the break, but I'm looking forward to getting them back in good health, and I hope they'll be ok.

That's it for now, we had a nice quite evening yesterday, but we should be getting the little Gremlins back soon.

Keith