Kittens dying suddenly

[smokey the elder]

This happened to one of my fellow rescuers in the group I work with. She and I split a litter of six (I took Mom and baby Indiana, and she took the other five.)

The kittens were 4-5 months old, and apparently healthy.

When she got home Thanksgiving night, she found one dead in the cage with no marks on him, or throwup or anything like that. Last night she lost another one! I now have Indiana and her sister in quarantine.

Have any of you foster moms or dads ever observed anything like this? Our group has collectively a couple hundred "cat-years" under our belts and have never seen this before. Needless to say it's scary.

[moosmom]

Smoky,

I have indeed experienced this. While living in Connecticut, I was rescued 2 mamas and 2 litters of kittens. One of my fellow rescuers took one mama and litter while I took the other.

Well, within 2 weeks, all the kittens I took died from distemper. One day they were fine, the next day they were lethargic, labored breathing, not eating and diarrhea. My friend who had the other litter put an orphaned kitten in with the other kittens, unaware that the orphaned kitten had distemper. All the kittens died.

Distemper is a very difficult disease that is fatal to kittens. The mothers were fine because their immune systems were in full force. I had to stop fostering for one whole year and close up my spare bedroom because distemper can stay airborne for up to 1 year.

[smokey the elder]

We don't think it's distemper; there were absolutely no symptoms. The volunteer that had the two kittens got bit by one of them, and has started the rabies series (!) They are doing a necropsy to see. What a scare!!

[moosmom]

Smokey,

Please let me know what you find out! Maybe they had FIP. Although I was told by my vet the only way to know for sure is to do a necropsy once a kitty has passed.

[Kirsten]

How sad and scary! :(

But with FIP, wouldn't they have shown symptoms of the disease instead of a sudden death? I once had a cat with FIP, and she was displaying numerous symptoms of the disease.

Kirsten

[smokey the elder]

There was no rabies. The vet who did the necropsy couldn't tell anything. A blood count on one of the littermates showed double the white blood cells, indicating an infection. A urinalysis indicated protein, another sign of infection.

The litter is on Clavamox as a preventative and in quarantine for 4 weeks. More advanced blood tests are in the works. They tested negative for coronavirus (FIP.) The working theory is now distemper, which is not good. But so far I've had two of the cats for 2 weeks, and one for one week.