|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Mon Apr 25, 2011 5:52 pm
 |
|
|
 |
Post may be long, sorry. D= Aren't mine always? Since I know some of you are pretty good with medical animal facts, I was wondering if you could weigh your opinions on this.
About two weeks ago, one of our feral cats our family cares for went missing for about 24 hours. Maggie was a small, timid girl who never even left our property, so this was highly unusual to us. When she returned, she seemed completely exhausted when my mom saw her that morning. When she went back to check on Maggie again that afternoon, she'd died. As some other cats who usually roam more showed up at that same time, we'd figured she'd
A day or two later, three disappeared, again ones that rarely, if ever, left our yard. It rained heavily for about 24 hours, and we also had some chaos with a couple seemingly displaced skunks roaming our property. We hoped this combo was the reason they were not showing up. After 36 hours, two showed up - Irena seemed fine. Watson, my poor mom's absolute best buddy outside, was near death. He'd lost visible weight and moved as if all his muscles hurt. We brought him to the vet's; they said he was just exhausted and fighting an infection, but the bloodwork later showed that he had literally no white blood cells in his system. The vet then said he probably has some sort of fast-growing tumor. About 5.5 hours after we found him, Watson started crashing and was euthanized.
Just last Friday, we also found the body of the third missing cat in our bushes. Judging from the state, she'd either never left or returned about the same time as the others and died in our bushes. She looked like her belly fur had been torn at; though my mom says it looks like that was after she died, our neighbor across the street did find odd fur on her driveway one morning.
Now, our neighbor is saying that Mama, our oldest outdoor and another hang-about-the-house type, is looking lethargic to her. We've noticed nothing, but we're keeping an eye out.
There are a couple possibilities our family's considering, but I'm exceedingly open to opinions:
1. Poisoning, accidental or intentional - it is spring, and people are putting things like weedkiller in their yards and probably leaving weird buckets of stuff around as they do yard work. Also, not all of our neighbors are understanding of the cats wandering on their property, whether or not they're being properly cared for. One of our normally-nice neighbors was literally threatening to trap and kill the cats around here, which is downright illegal, but he doesn't much seem to care. However, he's been out of town for the last several days, and he seems more impulsive talk than action. Our cats don't really go that direction, either.
2. Some sort of illness being spread by another animal - maybe adult feline parvovirus? There is a form that can affect adults, I think. As some other people here have heard before, we have an aggressive tomcat who lives caddy-corner from us across the street. I'm pretty certain he's not neutered, and he frequently picks fights with our cats and other ones in the neighborhood. It's possible he could be spreading something from another cat he fought. However, two of the cats who have died were ones he never dealt with. Watson and Felicity stayed away from conflict completely and wouldn't just left before he got near them.
While the possibility of Watson having a tumor matches up with his littermate whom we lost last year to something similar, it doesn't match with everything else going on.
My mom's very suspicious at this point that someone's doing something, and she's said she will call the police if another cat goes.
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Apr 25, 2011 6:22 pm
|
Gabrielle_AnimalLuver Crew
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Apr 25, 2011 6:34 pm
|
|
|
|
It's tragic that you're losing the ferals, as I can tell by your dedication (naming them individually, taking them to the vet if they're sick, etc) that you really do care lots about them.
However, being ferals, unfortunately there's not much you can do. That's just the plight of feral, outdoor cats- they're prone to acts of abuse by other humans (poisoning, etc), attacks from animals including other cats, communicable disease, etc. It's considerate of you to call the police if the cats keep disappearing, but what can they do? Maybe I'm a bit pessimistic, I don't know.
As far to the cause, you must realize that it could be a combination of factors, and there's the chance that at least a couple of the deaths were unconnected.
It sounds like disease to me, as far as the belly fur being torn at for one cat, it could have been done by another cat/the cat itself.
All the cats are having similar symptoms of lethargy and such, and die quickly after symptoms are spotted. All these deaths are happening within a very short timespan as well.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2011 4:24 pm
|
|
|
|
Sterile as in spayed/neutered? It's mixed. We did a spay neuter program last year for them - Watson (one that died) was neutered. Felicity (the one we found in our bushes) was too timid and let herself be pushed out of the traps by other cats. However, she was "barren," as in she never went into heat. She was almost two years old and never had a litter. Maggie (the first one to die) was not spayed because we literally didn't even know she existed when the trapping was done - her and her siblings didn't show up with their mother until two weeks after we'd had her spayed.
So far as ones left, it's a mixed bag again. Irena (disappeared and came back fine) and Mama (the one our neighbor's concerned about) are both spayed. Maggie has a brother who is not, and there's another female who was also too young to spay last year (barely weaned at the time and too skittish for capture) who is not. There are a few other non-altered ones who come in and out, but those ones hang out at our neighbor's now more than ours. She's actually a vet tech and has expressed interest in helping us get these other ones spayed/neutered this year. Any of the cats who've been spayed/neutered have also had a rabies shot. Unfortunately, the vets here won't give ferals distemper because of the booster(s) it requires.
So far as calling the police, the main reasons are because:
1. the neighbor threatening to poison the animals, especially if anything is brought up that this might be poison.
2. If this crap's being spread by the neighbor's cat, he is not feral and is not neutered, which is actually illegal here. We technically have no control over the unaltered ferals if someone decides to haul them away, but the ones who've been altered have clipped ears to prove it and legally may not be removed or harmed.
3. If this is potentially going to affect other wild animals or pets in the area, someone should know it's happening.
While the Watson no-white-blood cells thing makes me suspicious of something like leukemia, 4 of our 6 indoor cats are littermates or offspring of his littermate, and they all have tested negative for that (and been vaccinated against it!).
BTW, thanks for the replies so far. =) You have no idea how much it helps to talk it over with someone who doesn't just shrug their shoulders like the cats aren't a big deal.
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Gabrielle_AnimalLuver Crew
|
Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2011 5:00 pm
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2011 5:59 pm
|
|
|
|
Mmm, I would hope that the law would take it a little more seriously, considering he's made this threat directly to one of our neighbors who has a very well-cared for indoor-outdoor cat (and the aforementioned illegality of doing anything to cats with the feral spay/neuter ears), but who knows? It depends on who shows up and what they think of the animals.
As for testing, that stuff simply won't happen. While we love these cats dearly, the only one left alive we can actually physically touch is Mama. She trusts me and lets me pet her, but I work out-of-the-county and am not home during the day when she's around. She usually strolls off to somewhere comfortable in the evening when I return, so I can't really make a normal vet appointment for her. It's unfortunately not as easy as a normal pet that you can just put in a carrier and bring out to the car. And of the vets that we go to, the practice owner and his son have both worked with feral cats and are understanding. Some of the others treat them like they're inferior and have treated us like we were animal hoarders before... getting normal care for a feral is extremely difficult here.
And heaven knows the feral spay/neuter programs won't help with that stuff. So far as vaccinations, they do rabies vaccination and test for parvo. They won't do anything else; hell, they don't even administer pain medication. The only reason we didn't lose Irena to shock was because of the aforementioned practice owner being kind enough to give us some painkiller when we called in a panic.
There's also the "we're out of money for it" thing, but that seems a constant in our family with these animals.... confused I just wish I knew what was happening, so I knew what to expect.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Apr 27, 2011 8:10 pm
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Apr 28, 2011 4:00 pm
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reply
