Continuation of free kittens in Butler

[Emeraldgreen]

I wrote an email to the company that makes advantage. I'm sure it's a longshot but I asked them if they could help. I told them we'd post it all over pet forum I'll let you know if I hear anything. Otherwise, we all know you're doing the best you can and we appreciate all your good intentions and hard work. The vet should be grateful for people like you in his community

Great idea! I hope something comes of it! Keep us updated.

[rebeccahowes]

First, Emerald, the vet said the worm medicine might be ok, but I truly believe he just wanted me to get all the cats dewormed at his place. As far as the flea meds that you have for the dog that you wanted to share with me, he definitely said "no". He said it would hurt the cats. I picked the cats up today and it was so stressful. First, they told me that my cats were not allowed to climb on any stairs for a week. My whole entire house is stairs. I live in a four story house. Then they said they were not allowed to lick themselves where they had been cut open. For the boy, that is you no where? For the two girls, it was there stomaches. They said if you can't be home with them, you have to have someone watch them. I am home all of the time, but I do have to sleep, so I am kind of worried about that situation. So after digesting all of this info, I took my three cats home, and the only place I felt they were safe, was in my bedroom. They have been in there all eve, I put a cat litter box, cat food, and water. My husband and I share the room with my seven year old son because all the other rooms are taken by my other children. They don't want a seven year old in their bedrooms; therefore, we let him sleep in our room. Tonight my son asked to sleep downstairs and I have not even gone to bed. If I do, I will sleep on the couch. My husband, God bless his soul, is upstairs in a small bedroom sleeping with three cats. I think that is kind of funny. They will be there for six more days. Every time we open the door, they try to escape. The horrible thing is that if they escape they will be running down our stairs which the vet said "no stairs". After all of this drama, the vet said my cats have fleas really bad. I feel so bad. It will be really expensive to treat them for the fleas. They said I could buy a months supply at a time of Advantage, but that is pretty close to 70 dollars a month. I do not have that in my budget, only because I am having such a hard time clothing and feeding my children. I am not trying to sound desparate or begging, but I am truly having a really hard time right now. I want to do the best for my kids and for my cats. I am so thankful that three of my cats are spayed and neuterd, but we are still not out of the woods. There are still three more to go and they are all females and I think two are pregnant and the other just had four kittens. I still have four cats that have not been dewormed, which will spread back to the three that were dewormed, plus, everyone has fleas. Pretty soon my whole family will have fleas. I am going to vacuum three times a day to try to help with the infestation that could happen this summer. Life sometimes seems to be so hard. I just know that no matter what, I love my kids and my cats and I will try to help them in any way I can. Why couldn't God have made me rich? Oh well,live goes on. I appreciate any advice or help you guys can give me. I know that this seems like an overwhelming job, but I am willing to do this job and make sure that everyone is taking care of. I am sitting here crying because I cannot believe that my three cats are finally free from having tons of babies. My one cat had ten litters and I know she is going to be so happy to finally just sit back and enjoy life. You guys gave her life and freedom. I am just so amazed at the love for pets on this site and I will try to help anyone I can after I get through my own ordeal. That means everyone spayer or neutred, no fleas, no worms, and lots of love. I was just ready to sign off when I realized something that I want to share with everyone. I have had over 2000 views since I posted "FREE KITTENS" I know that I stirred alot of emotions from that post. I never meant to.I did get awesome homes for my beautiful kittens though. Now I have four more to go in about 7 weeks. I will send you guys pics. They are so adorable. They come from a feral cat, but I know they will end up tame in my house. There is so much love from me and my kids. The point that I was going to say, and believe me, I don't want to even ask, I really never ask for much and never expect much, that is my motto in life until I came to this website. It was no accident. It was God. He loves me, you, and all of our cats. If only 100 people, out of the 2000 people that have viewed my post, gave just 10 dollars to the vet I am going to, I would have 1000 dollars, and that would take care of the worms, the fleas, and every cat in my house would be spayed and neutred. That is such a dream for me. Before I close, tonight, my seven year old son came in and told me that there was a dead cat outside. I ran out to see if it was one of mine. Thankfully, it was not, but I still cried. It was a homeless cat, feral, alone, lost, unloved. My neighbor was kicking the cat to the curb so he could park his car. He really hates cats. After he went inside his house, I asked my husband to go out and pick him up off the curb. I would have burried him, but our neighbors would get mad because they say it gets in the the water system and they will call the police on me. When I was a little girl, my daddy always buried our dead cats in the backyard and put a little cross over their grave. Today, it is breaking the law; therefore, we put the cat in a garbage bag and he is lying on my back porch. My seven year old son said "mommy, there is a dead cat out in the street, but he is still breathing". He loves cats as I do. I want to share my love of cats with all cat lovers. Love Rebecca

[Emeraldgreen]

Rebecca, if your vet is referring to the expiry date of the dog Revolution as being dangerous, that is one thing. If he is referring to the ingredient in the dog Revolution that is for heartworms then that is another thing. But if he is saying that treating a cat with dog flea Revolution or Advantage is dangerous just because it is for dogs, it is not true. Obviously, if you squirted a whole tube of the dog revolution on one of your cats, that would be dangerous but this is not what I am suggesting or what Krazyaboutkatz said she does with her dog Advantage for her cats. It is measured out into proper doses that are a very small percentage of the tube. It is done all the time and it is safe. It sounds to me like he either misunderstood and thought you were going to put a whole tube on each cat which of course would be an overdose or he has concerns about the outdated stuff I have or the heartworm ingredient.
Perhaps you could ask him if it is the date or the heartworm part that he is referring to. If so, then I'll toss them out. But if it's just that he misunderstood and thought you wanted to put whole tubes of it on the cats, then you could explain to him that you were going to get help premeasuring the doses out before treating them. I could do the premeasuring for you and draw them up into the syringes and send them to you that way so you wouldn't have to measure them. I would just need to pick up some caps to put on the ends of the syringes so the revolution doesn't spill out. I think pharmacies might sell them.
Worst case scenerio is that you'd have to buy ONE box of dog Advantage (just regular Advantage, not Advantage Multi-which has heartworm meds in it). Krazyaboutkatz has posted the dosage that she gives her cats and her cats are all doing fine and from the sounds of it are 'flea free'. One tube (you get 6 tubes in a box) has 4 mls each. Depending on the weight of your cats, each cat would need roughly half of one ml each. That means one tube could treat 8 cats. One box could treat 8 cats for 6 months. The cost of the box is I think about 70.00 or something but that would be enough to treat them ALL for 6 months. I can mail you the syringes you'd need that are still in their packaging that you would need to draw the Advantage out of the tubes.
And, maybe your vet or other vets in the phonebook might sell Advantage by the tube. Advantage does not require a prescription (the regular kind) so you can buy it at any vet. If you can find a vet that sells it by the tube, then you could just buy one large dog tube size (it is the one that comes in the Navy blue coloured box) and it would probably cost you around 15.00-20.00 and you could treat all your cats for this month. Next month, same thing etc.. This is done all the time, I know of many shelters that do this, it's safe as long as you are dosing the cats correctly.
I have already mailed off the Drontal so you should receive it by the end of next week. I will PM you a dosing chart. There is more than enough tablets in there (14 in total) to treat all your cats twice. You should wait until the ferals are either fixed or finished weaning kittens before dosing them though.
I'm also sending you the can of flea spray that is for the house (NOT pets) and along with vacuuming as mentioned in my earlier post, will help tremendously. Worst case, you might have to go and buy one more can and it will cost around 22.00. The two cans together will cover 2,000 square feet.

I'm so glad the cats are home and safely tucked into your bedroom. The main thing to watch for is that the incision doesn't open. If you see that, you should take them back to get them 'stapled' before the incisions open up any further. This usually doesn't cost anything. You just want to avoid the incision opening to the point that staples won't help and surgery has to be done all over again. It's expensive because they charge you for the anesthesia and vet's time etc.. So, it's awesome that you guys have them in a quiet place and that hubby doesn't mind his new roomies.
Also, they often send the female cats home with the head cones to keep them from being able to lick themselves. Alot of clinics usually will 'lend' a collar if an owner can't afford one. If you do have to buy one, they are under 10.00 each.

As far as the ferals go next month, I'm wondering if MoonandBean's donation had been received yet by the vet hospital. You mentioned that 355.00 had been received but wasn't the total already over 300.00 with Kuhio's, Moesha and my donations? Hopefully that is the case because that would mean another 100.00 should be available to go towards the feral spays.

[MoonandBean]

yah...The charge has already appeared on my credit card statement so make sure they're including it.

[krazyaboutkatz]

I just wanted to add that the vet that I used to take my cats to was the one that suggested that I buy the large dog advantage because the ingredients are the same as the cat advantage. He did this to help save me money. I only had 4 cats back then. Since I live in CA, I have to treat my cats year round and so far so good. You can also probably get free syringes from your vet or any other vet office when you buy the advantage from them. The numbers will eventually wear off of the syringes so I use either masking tape or surgical tape to mark off the right amount that is needed. I also have an empty plastic test tube with a lid that I squeeze the advantage into so then I can measure it out and save whatever is left over for next time. Good luck.

[Moesha]

I have a friend whose pack of critters got fleas last summer. She has 5 dogs and 4 cats. The dogs were given their own dosages of Advantage, but he gave her the large size dog dosages with the instructions for breaking them up for each of the cats.

[MoonandBean]

I received this response from Advantage. I will certainly call! If anyone else wants to call; it might be the more the better...




Thank you for your recent email regarding the Advantage.

In order to best address your concerns, please contact Bayer Product Information at 800/255-6826 and ask for Jill or Annette. We will be happy to answer all your questions at that time.

We look forward to hearing from you soon.

Kind regards,

Bayer HealthCare

[rebeccahowes]

Hi everyone! I had an appointment for the last feral cat to be spayed, but she disappeared on her appointment day. She is rescheduled for the middle of July. I had a new litter of kittens and was able to find good homes for two. I still have two kittens left. If I keep the two kittens, I will have nine cats. I want to know if everyone thinks that nine cats are ok in a four story house. I feel that I can handle the situation, but I do have a landlord that will never understand and my 20 year old is not happy with the situation. I don't want to be a hoarder, but there is no where to take the cats to and no body usually adopts older cats. I am willing to take on the job and almost everyone is spayed. The kittens can be spayed in four months and from the donations I recieved, I can spay one kitten and I am sure I can come up with the money for the other kitten. That means that all nine cats will be spayed. I can afford the food and cat litter and I have all the patience in the world and love everyone of my cats. Do you guys think I am crazy? The fact is that I have no where to take any of the cats. The shelters charge 50 dollars and Tiger Ranch is no longer around. Second, I would never want to take them to a shelter. There is no guarantee that they would get a home. Does anyone else have nine animals? I just don't want to seem like a hoarder. My landord never comes over; therefore, I don't have to worry about him. I have lived here for seven years and he never bugs me. Thanks for everything, everyone. Love Rebecca

[Moesha]

What are you going to do if the feral cat is pregnant again by the time of her appointment in July? What about if any one or more of them needs major medical attention? Is the flea problem fixed? There are others here that have more kitties in the house and could probably give better advice than me. I would just be concerned.

[Emeraldgreen]

Hi Rebecca. I'm so surprised that no one wanted the sweet little one without the tail! They are both cute but that one stole my heart!
It's hard to say if it's a good idea or not for you to keep the two kittens. I have 9 cats but it's a handful and financially a big deal. A few years ago it didn't seem to cost that much but over the past couple of years, I've been dealing with health issues with 4 of my cats and it has really added up. It's so unpredictable when one of them is going to need vet care. One of the reasons we are selling our home is to move to a more affordable place so they can all get the vet care they need whenever that need arises. Our house is pretty big too, lots of room for everybody but it's expensive to care for so many animals. We do spend quite a bit of money on holistic dry food for them rather than the cheap stuff but I think in the end it helps reduce future vet bills. And, we seem to adopt a cat every 2 years or so and it's usually after one of our cats has passed away and a space has opened up. Part of me wishes I could take in all the needy cats but I just know that I could not handle it and they would not get the care they deserve or the attention.

Maybe there is another PT'r in PA who rescues kittens who could take these two in? I'm not sure if there is someone who could but it's just an idea.

Also, I wonder if you could ask the local shelter if you could place the kittens there and if no one adopts them within a month or two, you could take them back? I have no idea if this is an option but maybe worth asking about. This way they would get a chance to possibly get a home and if no one comes for them, they can have a home with you?

How is the flea situation going these days? I hope that your family and all the cats are not being bitten by them. Do you still have flea meds left to continue administering?

Anyway, hope all is well. Good to hear from you and please keep us updated with your fur family. Those kittens are so adorable.

p.s. Like Moesha, I'm concerned about the adult feral getting pregnant again. Is there a way for you to keep her in a room until her spay date? It might sound like a long time but really it would only be about 2 or 3 weeks and if you could avoid another litter on your hands, it would be so worth it. If you are having trouble finding homes for these last two cuties, a whole new litter will be even harder.

[Medusa]

Maybe there is another PT'r in PA who rescues kittens who could take these two in? I'm not sure if there is someone who could but it's just an idea.

Also, I wonder if you could ask the local shelter if you could place the kittens there and if no one adopts them within a month or two, you could take them back? I have no idea if this is an option but maybe worth asking about. This way they would get a chance to possibly get a home and if no one comes for them, they can have a home with you?



p.s. Like Moesha, I'm concerned about the adult feral getting pregnant again. Is there a way for you to keep her in a room until her spay date? It might sound like a long time but really it would only be about 2 or 3 weeks and if you could avoid another litter on your hands, it would be so worth it. If you are having trouble finding homes for these last two cuties, a whole new litter will be even harder.

These are the ideas to which I was referring, Rebecca. It doesn't hurt to at least ask the shelter if this is an option for the kittens. And if you can keep the feral isolated on your strict orders for a couple of weeks to avoid another litter, that could be the way to go. No one said anything about trying to find the adult feral a home, as you mentioned. What we said was to get her spayed so that she doesn't reproduce. PA is a large state, so if you can, try to find someone who also rescues cats/kittens that might be able and willing to take the two remaining kittens as a foster home until a permanent home can be found. Networking is a wonderful thing, as you have experienced by posting here on PT. If you can connect w/other rescuers in PA, it could be the answer to your prayers.

[rebeccahowes]

Hi everyone, on Wensday I have to catch the final adult feral cat in order to get her spayed. She has a big wound on her neck which I am going to get treated at the vets. I am not sure how to catch her without hurting her neck. My husband normally catches the cats by grabbing them like the mom does. I am scared that this will hurt her. Also, I could not catch her for her last appointment and they will be very mad if I don't make it to this appointment. Does anyone have ideas on how to catch a feral cat? Thanks!!

[rebeccahowes]

Hi, I am also concerned, but I feel that I have the solutions to my problem. First, if the feral cat is pregnant, it costs an extra 20 dollars and I have 100 on my account thanks to someone special on the boards. It is 45 regularly and 65 if they are pregnant. That leaves me almost enough to get one kitten spayed. I have four months to come up with another 45 for the other kitten. The flea problem has been solved thanks to donations of a three month supply of advantage. The worm problem has been solved because of donations. If there is a major medical problem, I will not be able to do a thing. Even if I had one cat, I would not be able to help them. So far, in my life of having cats, nothing has ever gone wrong except fleas and worms. I feel blessed. I do live on a busy street and I have had four cats hit by cars. They died instantly. I try to keep them inside, but it is truly impossible because I have five children and all of their friends running in and out. The cats are very fast. When they want out, they find a way out. Thanks for your concerns and I hope this letter answers all of your questions. Love Rebecca

[Moesha]

Rebecca,
I know your heart is in the right place wanting to help these and all kitties. I have 8 that I am taking care of and a dog. Last month my vet bill alone, not counting food or litter or normal expenses, was $550. That was just routine attention. No major problems. What will you do if you get the fleas and worms back? Without continual monthly medicines, which are expensive, it is very possible that they will come back, especially with the cats that go in and out. People were able to generously donate to help you out and get everyone healthy. Keeping them that way is hard. Nine cats is a HUGE undertaking. Much bigger than just providing litter and food. Believe me, I know. I would not recommend that you add to the crew that you have now. Especially with the cost of everything going up, owning pets is not going to get any more affordable in the near future.

[Medusa]

I have 8 cats and, until recently, worked two jobs. Just last month alone, I spent over $1000 for vet care. If two of my cats get sick at once, as they did last month, it's a major expense. All my cats are indoor so I'm not too concerned about fleas or worms although it's been known to happen anyhow. As you know, flea meds are expensive and need to be administered monthly, especially if your cats go in and out regularly. Also, you mentioned that your daughter is opposed to taking in more cats and my motto has always been "People first". Do your best to help the cats but your family should have a say in this. Just my opinion but if I feel in my heart that I can't afford the pet, I won't add it to my household. True, circumstances change and we can't turn an animal out if we lose our job, as did happen to me, unless we're absolutely backed up against a wall and then it might be that we have to find homes for our pets. All these things need to be taken into consideration before taking on the responsibility. I would never presume to tell someone how many cats are too many. There are people here on PT who have more cats than I and they take excellent care of them. But, as you are aware, the cat population can all too easily get out of control and if that other feral does get pregnant, then there ya go. That will mean more kittens to have altered besides the mama and flea meds and shots for all of them. I'd do my best to keep trying to place the kittens if I were you and get that mama altered ASAP.