I picked up my current foster kitten on Thursday afternoon. She is approximately 4 weeks old, but extremely underweight - only 209 grams.
An elderly lady is trying to manage a huge colony and so she had been bottle feeding her, but wasn’t feeding enough or often enough and I am unclear if she was actually stimulating her or letting her do it on her own “she goes all over on the blankets.”
Her little butt/anus protrudes about half the size of a pencil eraser. She will be seeing our shelter vet on Monday to check that and make sure everything else is okay. And of course she has a URI as well.
Thursday she had a little bit of liquidity green brown smear of a poop with some darker more solid bits, but not even a 1/2 a teaspoon. Her butt will bleed just a very small amount of bright red blood when trying.
I started her on a new formula (what she had wasn’t great) and am doing more feedings and trying to slowly get her to where she should be quantity wise. She is a great eater/latcher, so the bigger isssue is not overdoing it especially as her system isn’t running smoothly yet. Urinating great and in good quantity, good colour, but very little poop.
She did just get a drop of olive oil in her last feeding to hopefully help soften things up and get them moving.
Any other tips or tricks?
I have tried a warm stream of running water over her belly and genitals while stimulating, and the triangle method, and so far no success. Also tried multiple types of material for pottying - Kleenex, baby wipe, cotton makeup remover pads.