abandon kitten aprox. one week old

Question
QUESTION: Hi thank you for any response to my question.  I have been bottle feeding a now aprox week old kitten.  As of today there is urine in the box where the kitty sleeps (I feed her every two hours with kitten formula). My schedule is to bottle feed, try for potty and poop then see if she wants more bottle and then lay her down to sleep.  also when I massage the area where she would urinate there is a small amount of red/pinkish blood on the cottonball....should this be a concern?

ANSWER: Danielle,

I would be concerned about there being blood in the urine.  At a week of age, there is not too much a vet can do. It is possible you were a bit too enthusiastic about getting the kitten to potty. On the other hand, there could be something more serious wrong. If it continues, I would see your vet.

Anyway, I expect you know all this, but here is an information dump on hand raising orphan kittens:

The kitten can be weaned can be weaned at about 3-4 weeks of age. One week old kittens are not very good at regulating their body temperature yet, so the most important thing is to keep her warm. You should keep her in a warm draft free part of the household with no access by other pets or young children.  She will do well in a good sized cardboard box with old toweling or sheeting.

To see if the kitten is doing well when you hand raise her, we like a digital postal scale for weighing kittens. Newborns should gain about 1 oz (30 g) in the first week and nearly 2 oz (50g) in each subsequent week until weaning.  A good feeding regimen for week old kittens is 4 times a day (e.g. midnight, 7:00 AM, 1:00 PM, 7:00 PM).  

You can get good kitten milk replacer products, e.g. Justborn or KMR.  Until she gets her strength, you may want to add a bit of unflavored Pedialyte to the formula (about one  part formula to one part Pedialyte for the first couple of days).

The kitten should take about .3 oz (8-10 mL) of formula for every 4 oz (100 g) of body weight daily.  Divide this by 4 to get an idea of how much to feed each time. If the mixture is too rich or the kitten is being overfed, she can get diarrhea. If she does not seem to drink enough, wait a few minutes and try again.

Whether you are tube or pet nurser feeding, make sure the formula is warm on the back of your hand before giving it to the baby. In any case watch out for over feeding.  This can cause diarrhea and, worse, if a baby regurgitates it can aspirate the formula leading to pneumonia!

Once the baby has been fed, you can potty it.  She should pee each time and poop once a day. To potty the kitten get a soft tissue or cloth and gently stimulate the genital area, it will potty.  You can burp each baby by holding it upright and gently tapping on its back.  With a pet nurser, she may get some air, so you should listen for the burp.

Please let me know how it goes.

Best regards... Norm.




---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hi Norm, I thank you for your information and response.  This last Sunday our little kitty passed.  She was aprox. 10 days old.  In the course of that week we had seen the vet 2x.  The first time because we could not get her to poop so they gave her an enema.  She poop and continued to thrive...but then for a couple of days when she would urine there would be a spot of blood and maybe a discharge, then  Friday night she had labored breathing and would not eat much.  Saturday morning I took her to the vet again, they did not see the blood nor was she breathing like she did the night before.  The vet did an ultra sound, listened to her lungs, etc. and said she seemed healthy.  We took her home...by now her eyes were open and she was playful to the rubbing of her belly.  she slept good but by the evening she was in breathing difficulty and passed away in my husbands hands.  We were told that the first two weeks would be tough but we so thought we had made it....It has been difficult, I miss the every two hours of feeding and keeping her warm....well I just miss her....if you have any insight to what maybe of happened I would love if you could share it with me.....take care and thank you, Danielle

Answer
Danielle,

I am so sorry you lost the kitten.  However, most orphaned kittens that young do not make it.  What may have happened, is that she regurgitated some formula and aspirated it at some point. This is usually what goes wrong. The labored breathing was probably a pneumonia or pneumonia like condition from the probable aspiration. The bloody discharge could have been anything.  The fact that she had trouble pooping initially is not unusual, but often can mean trouble.

I wish I could have been of more help, but at that age there is little anyone can do if things begin to go wrong.  We, too, have run into this kind of problem with no success.

Sad regards... Norm.