One Less Arrival

Born under a porch in St. Clair, Missouri, the mother was not caring for her babies. Thankfully, the homeowner who found the kittens works at a vet clinic, so she took the babies to work with her. Caring for newborn kittens is incredibly time consuming and with all the other things to be done for the animals coming into the clinic, they knew they could not keep up with the kitten's feeding schedule and the other care required. That is why we got the call in the morning asking if we could take two little orange tabbies.

In spite of the efforts of the vet staff, one of the kittens died before they were able to transport them to us. The surviving kitten is named Jolene. She is about 2 ounces underweight, but she is making up for the meals she missed.

When our Foster Care Volunteer was talking to the person who transported the kitten, she asked if there were only 2 in the litter. When she said yes, our volunteer knew that for a cat to only have 2 kittens is pretty unusual. That was when she suggested, if it was possible, to try and bring the mother cat into the clinic to find out if she had any retained fetuses.

In cats, retained fetuses or placentas occur when the mother is unable to expel all the placental tissues or unborn kittens after giving birth. Signs there is a problem include a swollen stomach, loss of appetite, being lethargic and the mother has little to no interest in caring for her newly born kittens. This condition can lead to complications such as infections or inflammation of the uterus when not taken care of promptly. If treatment is not sought the mother can become sepsis, which can be passed onto nursing kittens.

We don't know why the other kitten died, so for this reason we are keeping a close eye on Jolene. If something does start to develop, we want to be sure to catch it early. We'll keep you updated on our little ginger.