Help with 2 week old foster kittens - 1 won't eat without aspirating

[kittenkins]

Hey guys. I have 3 orphaned foster kittens, approximately 2 weeks old. They were doing well for the first few days, they've always had diarrhea but other than that they were all energetic and eating well. I have them on KMR with probiotics.
The past two days have been rough. Only one kitten is thriving, though he still has diarrhea.
One kitten I'm very worried about. She aspirated milk this morning. I was feeding her on her belly, upright, and at first I squeezed the bottle lightly to get the flow going. She latched and ate excitedly, but when I removed the bottle she was choking. She choked up milk and had gurgley cries. I flipped her upside down a few times and it seemed like it helped. After a while it seemed like all the milk was out and she was breathing normally.
A few hours later I tried to feed everyone again. This time while feeding her I did not squeeze the bottle at all and let her suck it out of the bottle naturally. It happened again. She choked what seems to be most or all of it up, meows went back to normal and everyone is asleep now. She's breathing fine.
I'm concerned because it seems like she won't eat now without this happening. I'm afraid to feed her at all. I'm using a bottle with a nipple cut into an X at the top. I'm currently cleaning out an old 3ml syringe. Would syringe feeding be a good idea? How long should I wait to feed her again?
I'm going out of town for 24 hours and leaving the kitty with a family friend. I told him how to take care of them, he's also done it in the past. Should I tell him to not feed her until I come back home? I don't trust her being fed while I'm gone and I'm not there to help her cough it up. Like I said I have a syringe if that will be better.
I have several things coming in the mail like electrolytes for kittens, baby cereal to thicken the formula, more syringes. I'll be back home tomorrow to retrieve the kittens and the vet is out till Friday, so I'm going on Friday morning.

[Mollycat]

Hi sorry I can't help with bottle feeding kittens but I wouldn't just not feed this one for 24 hours, that sounds a lot more dangerous than someone else dealing with choking.

[Ruth B]

I've no experience with kittens that young, except for watching live streams of them, but I do know that there are problems that kittens can have, anything from their bodies not being fully formed internally, to problems with conflicting blood types between kitten and Mum Cat, to what I've seen referred to as Fading Kitten Syndrome, when for no apparent reason a kitten just doesn't thrive. In the end all you can do is your best, which is what you are doing,

As for not feeding the kitten i would also advise against it. To my knowledge, kittens need feeding every 2 hours, so 12 meals a day, which is rather like a human not having food or water for 4 days, you wouldn't be in a good state at the end of that. About the only other thing I could suggest is getting the kitten to a vet for the 24 hours and have them treated there, the vet could also check to make sure there is no obvious reason for the kitten to asperate the milk rather than drink it.

[kittenkins]

Just wanted to update. I did not starve her for 24 hours. The only reason I thought of withholding food was because it seemed like it just kept happening over and over no matter how careful and slowly i was doing it. I would lightly touch her throat to make sure she was swallowing while nursing but it happened 3 more times and I had to do the kitten rollercoaster move on her to get it out.

The 2 orange kittens are doing okay. The one that lacked an appetite had a full turn around and is now the strongest out of the bunch. Funny how that happens. He eats enthusiastically every 3 hours. He's gaining weight again, still underweight but doing better. His twin brother started losing his appetite, but with a little patience and coaxing, he gets enough to eat and is gaining weight too. They all have diarrhea still, unfortunately.
The poor little girl who aspirated milk is doing very badly. I think she has aspiration pneumonia, which makes me feel awful. It's usually caused by improper bottle feeding. I've bottle fed before and felt I was doing it properly, but I think what happened was she got too excited while eating and got fidgety, started crying while eating and inhaled some. She does it every time she eats, and now she has no interest at all in eating. She ate 15ml around 11 AM today, now it's 7 PM and she hasn't ate since, while both her brothers have eaten several times. She losing weight, too. Vet appointment is tomorrow at 9 AM. She's doing so poorly that I wonder if putting her down would be the best option, but maybe they will be able to help her survive.

[kittenkins]

I got calico baby to eat a few times. She had pink diarrhea though. But it seemed like she has more energy. I'll update after the vet tomorrow

[Mollycat]

Fingers crossed for her and you

[Ruth B]

Fingers crossed for her.

Whatever happens, try not to blame yourself, you did all you could, and without you none of them would have stood a chance.

[kittenkins]

The calico passed away this morning before the vet.
The orange babies are doing really well now. It doesn't seem there's anything wrong with them. Now they're both eating fine and gained weight. They gained like .75 oz in a day and a half.
Thanks for your support!

[Mollycat]

Sorry for calico kitten. You did your best but it did sound like you were fighting a valiant battle against all odds.

[kittenkins]

Fingers crossed for her.

Whatever happens, try not to blame yourself, you did all you could, and without you none of them would have stood a chance.

Thank you Ruth

Sorry for calico kitten. You did your best but it did sound like you were fighting a valiant battle against all odds.

Thank you Mollycat

[Ruth B]

i'm so sorry you lost the little calico, i know you fought hard to save her, but it seems to me that there may have been something wrong inside that meant no matter what you tried, it just wasn't meant to be.

I hope the two remaining kittens now go from strength to strength for you.

[kittenkins]

I'm so sad, I lost another one last night. He just withered away:( I took him to the vet twice, they gave him medicine and I force-fed him VERY carefully with a syringe, drop by drop, every hour or two, recording how many millileters of formula he was getting to make sure it was enough, but not too much. He was on a very small dose of diarrhea medicine and it seemed like it was starting to help. I gave him Kittenlyte, small dab of Karo, then I tried a fading kitten protocol where you burrito him and administer .1ml of Kittenlyte mixed with Karo every 3 minutes. The protocol apparently saved many kittens before and was written by a very experienced bottle feeder so I had some hope.
I went out for an hour and when i came home he was gone. I was almost worried his brother accidentally smothered him, because his brother doubled his weight and when I walked in, he was laying on top of his face. I was only gone for an hour and he was gone
I'm trying not to blame myself, I really felt like I did everything I could do, short of giving him fluids under the skin and tube feeding, which I don't have the training to do. I reached out to rescues in my area about a week ago because although I have experience with bottle feeding kittens, I didn't have experience with such a sick litter of kittens, and I got these at 4 days old which is my youngest litter. But none of them were taking intakes, and the ones that were only took them from the ASPCA, and I felt their fate might fare better with me. They might have killed them all and at least with me it seems like one of them will be able to live.
I was too vulnerable and shared what happened with too many people, and a couple people blamed me for him being sick and dying. I had somebody reach out and basically eviscerate me saying I should never foster because I let my vet give him medicine and that's why he's gone now. I have saved so many other kittens, these are the only ones that got sick and I felt like I tried everything with the orange kitten.

[Mollycat]

So sorry for kitten. Try not to let the trolls dent your optimism or doubt yourself, even very experienced breeders with mother cat lose kittens. Even if in the end the remaining one doesn't make it, you are trying your very best and beyond that the kittens have to do the rest.

[kittenkins]

So sorry for kitten. Try not to let the trolls dent your optimism or doubt yourself, even very experienced breeders with mother cat lose kittens. Even if in the end the remaining one doesn't make it, you are trying your very best and beyond that the kittens have to do the rest.

Thank you Molly means a lot to me

[booktigger]

I'm sorry that people have tried blaming you, but sadly there are no guarantees hand rearing kittens with no mum, and with them having diarrhea from the start, there may well have been something underlying that you couldn't do anything about. I'm shocked that people would blame you for taking them to the vets and giving them medicine though, surely that is the most responsible thing to do. You might want to point out to them that given no rescues could help, all 3 would have died without your help, and suffered more.

[Ruth B]

YOU TRIED YOUR BEST, let no one take that from you, you tried when others didn't, you tried when others turned you away, you took them to a vet, and the vet should know what medication can be given to a kitten, not some troll on the internet.

Most of my kitten knowledge has come from watching videos of kittens in foster homes. I've watched a grown man who has fostered hundreds of kittens and their mothers in tears because all his experience couldn't save a kitten. I've seen another group in shock at the number of B Blood type cats they have in from one feral colony over half the mothers were B blood type. Apparently B Blood type is rare, and normally only about 4% of cats have that blood type, perhaps it isn't actually as rare as people think. Unfortunately if the kitten born to a B Blood type Mum isn't also B Blood type and is allowed to nurse in the first 24 hours it can kill them slowly. That charity now blood types the mother cats, and if the mother is type B, they then blood type each kitten as it is born and if the kitten is of a different blood type they will hand reared it for the first 24 hours after which it is safe to return it. Let them nurse and the antibodies in the milk will slowly kill the kitten. It isn't cheap or easy, but they have saved dozens of kittens, but I hate to think how many others have died, just because people don't know or arent' able to blood type every mom cat that comes into them. There is still so much we are learning and all we can do is out best to help them. In the end you aren't to blame, you tried to help.

[kittenkins]

Thank you so much everyone.

The remaining kitten has been well, but about 30 minutes ago I noticed one side of his face is super swollen. Like where his lymph node is. He acts like he wants to eat then refuses the bottle, maybe it hurts to swallow being so swollen? My vet is closed now but I'll be calling when I wake up tomorrow to see if they can take a look at him. Does anyone know what it could be? He's on metronidazole for the past couple of days, seemed fine until now. Some people say it's toxic to cats but he seemed okay until tonight. I gave him a small dose of kaolin pectin (mine doesn't have bismuth) per vet's instructions, today was the first day I gave it to him since his diarrhea hadn't improved too much and I'm wondering if he's having some sort of reaction to it. I'm probably going to hold off on it now just in case. I really hope he doesn't die, I'll be so heartbroken.