Peanut's Progress
- info074086
- Jul 30
- 2 min read
On the evening of 20 July, our cat coordinator took an emergency call from an RSPCA inspector. They had taken in a lot of cats and some kittens from a house. They were at the vet, as they were all underweight.
They were able to put the adult cats (apart from one) in a private boarding cattery (as they couldn't find space in a branch) but they needed someone to hand rear 3 little kittens and take the other adult cat. Our branch was also overloaded, but the cat coordinator told the inspector to bring them to her and busily got 2 bedrooms ready, as she already had foster kittens in her dining room, and also her own cats.
The 2 little girl kittens were 3 weeks old and weighed 150g. A normal kitten of that age should weigh anywhere between 350-450g. They were called Nacho and Twinkle. The little boy kitten was 5-6 weeks old and weighed 357g. A normal kitten of that age should weigh 600-750g. These poor little kittens were all severely underweight, covered in poo, had urine burns around their bottoms and legs, and had conjunctivitis in their eyes. They also had round little bellies full of worms. She started feeding them kitten formula every 2 hours.
The next day they were taken to the vet to get treatment for worms. Unfortunately Nacho passed away on the 22 July, and Twinkle passed on 24 July, as their little bodies had no fight left in them, even though we fought very hard for them.
Peanut would only take his feed through a syringe, but was slowly putting on weight. He then decided he wasn't going to take kitten formula milk. The cat coordinator changed his food to goat milk and started mixing it in with some tiny dried food and found a kitten formula mousse that she also mixed some goat milk into. After getting a small amount into him, he decided he was going to try to eat for himself.
After a few days he was gaining weight and decided he was going to try to go for a little walk in the bedroom, and rather than the fosterer toileting him, he was going to try using the little litter tray. It took a week before the diarrhoea eventually stopped.
Every day we are seeing him get more and more energy and on 30 July, he tried to play with a toy for the first time. Although Peanut still has a long way to go (and he still might not make it) we are working tirelessly to give him the best chance, and he is fighting for it too.
Our volunteer cat coordinator and volunteer fosterers work night and day in cases like this to try and save cats that are in poor condition. It’s very hard when cats pass away, but the team has to keep going, as there are always more cats to look after.
We’ll keep you updated on little Peanut’s progress.
