This will be a lil journal type story of my adventure in fostering kittens. I'll be including lots of pictures, hopefully daily, so you can watch them growing with me! Enjoy!
Ok so, I have good news and bad news. Bad news is we think Mama Maxine has Mastitis, which is a bacterial infection in the milk ducts common in new moms. The good news is it looks like it's only in one teat, and that it's not life threatening.
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We found a bit of blood on Gray's face and figured out it was coming from Mama Maxine's teat.
Basically, the combination of the stress of pregnancy, nursing, and sharp kitten teeth create a potential playground for bacteria. Usually the mama kitty can fight off the infection naturally but in some circumstances if the mama is lacking proper nutrition (which based on her loosing 4 oz last night, this seems to be most of the problem) or is overly stressed, her immune system can't fully fight it off.
As far as treatment goes, we'll be giving her Clavamox (an antibiotic) in addition to Panacur and Pyranel (dewormers) as well as some kitten formula to combat the weight loss and give her some extra calories.
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Other than that, the Gray unfortunately is down 13 g and Bleu has stayed the same weight, but Skunk and Whitey are up 17 g and 42 g respectively.. Which makes me think perhaps we got Whitey and Bleu mixed up. This is why keeping their names separate is important.
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For what it's worth as I said Gray is the one we found the blood on earlier today, and because mastitis is somewhat painful Mama Maxine might not be letting the babies nurse as much on that teat.
Welp today was an eventful day. At least we found out about these things earlier on so we can nip it in the bud. Still I think that's all for today. Thank God, I don't think I could take much more, haha. I will admit between school and keeping up with all this I'm a bit stressed out. Ah well. Talk to you tomorrow. Take care!
