Sneezing Kitten

Question
4 kittens 13 days old. About a week ago I took in a stray cat and her 4 kittens. She has been taking care of them; besides preferring to sleep outside of the box after she is done feeding and grooming the kittens, fairly well for a young mom. A few days ago I noticed 1 of the kittens was sneezing several times at a time, but not often. It mostly happened when it would start nuzzling it's momma's belly looking for food. So I just thought perhaps it was it's momma's fur tickling it's nose, but it's continued for a week now. Even when he's not moving around in momma's fur. He still has a healthy appetite, and moves around normally. None of the other kittens have been sneezing as far as I can tell. I have just started the interaction part of their development. Is it possible it could have got worse because of this?

Answer
Virginia,

There is a good chance that this kitten may have contracted calicivirus or feline herpes virus... These viral infections are quite common in unvaccinated cats and kittens (if mommy wasn't vaccinated prior to getting pregnant then she couldn't pass the antibodies on to her babies)... The feline herpes virus is somewhat like the herpes virus that causes cold sores in people - the kittens will be affected from time to time with sneezing, possibly some nasal and eye discharge, but overall there shouldn't be any serious health issues as a result of these viral infections. It might not be a bad idea to start mom on a lysine paste that you can buy from your local vet as it will help enhance her immune system as well as the immune systems of her growing babies. Be sure that you keep mommy and babies' eyes and nose free of discharge so that they don't develop bacterial infections as a result of the viral infection.

If you haven't been spending any time at all with the kittens prior to this point the kittens may simply be herpes kittens reacting to change... Not uncommon in these guys, if you find that the babies develop issues with breathing, activity level, appetite, weight gain, development, etc then I would suggest seeing a veterinarian with the whole family ASAP, but so long as they are doing fine I would leave them and mommy to it while working to socialize the babies as well as you can.

If you have any further questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me again at any time - I'm more than happy to help in any way that I can.

Kind regards,

Ali

PS: try to make sure that mommy does NOT come into contact with any other cats and if you come into contact with any cats beyond mommy and her babies wash your hands prior to and after handling!