BeadyWhite’s previous litter of two kittens was 10 months old. In the meantime she had another litter of three kittens in April 2005. Another stray kitten of roughly the same size also adopted us when this second batch of kittens was about two months old.
On July 6, 2005, one of the 10-month-olds named simply “White,” came home at night with a bleeding cut on his paw to which we applied antibiotic powder. It seemed to heal the next day but on July 8, 2005 we found him lethargic and tottering around on unsteady legs and although he was able to walk and miaow, he couldn’t swallow even water and vomited clear bright yellow frothy fluid a few times. Since this is India and we have had a number of cats over the last 20 years all of whom have been healthy, we did not think of taking him to a vet but the next morning (remember they were free to wander in and out of the house through the windows) we found him sitting near the kitchen drain in a damp spot, with half closed eyes with dilated pupils and getting progressively weaker and he was dead by afternoon. He also had drooled a lot, being unable to swallow even his own saliva.
On July 13, 2005, one of the 3-month-old kittens developed the exact same symptoms and died on July 15, 2005, and his two little brothers died in quick succession with the same symptoms. The smallest of them died within hours of developing the yellow vomiting, lethargy, dilated pupils, and drooling, and the third one died on July 17, 2005. They also had one other symptom, they were unable to sleep or curl up but sat the entire 1-1/2 days with their front paws straight out and their tail straight out behind them, being unable to move it, and with half open eyes with dilated pupils even in bright sunlight. They did not have diarrhea.
Here I should mention that the stray kitten (Tiger) who had adopted us, was White’s close pal and shared a dish with him but the little three who never went near White were the next to die.
We thought nothing more would happen, when on July 20, 2005, Tiger developed the same symptoms and we knew he would die the next afternoon so we took him to a vet who said it was probably from eating a poisoned rat (who might have eaten rat poison) and gave the poor little kitten an antibiotic shot and told us to feed him lots of fluids by syringe, although I did read on the internet that vitamin K was the antidote for rat poison. But he just could not swallow even a drop of water and it kept dribbling down the sides of his mouth. He died as we had dreaded the next afternoon on July 21, 2005, and only the last kitten from the earlier 10-month-olds was alive when he too got the ominous symptoms on July 23, 2005 and we took him to a different vet this time who said he had a viral infection of the liver and gave him an antiemetic and an antibiotic shot. But nothing helped and he seemed to be in great pain, miaowing mournfully all day and we could not do anything to help him and he died on July 24, 2005. It was terribly traumatic for me and my family to watch all these kittens suffer so much and die and not being able to help them in any way, and we still miss them terribly.
I went over all cat diseases on all the sites I could find but no disease matched the rapidity of death after onset of symptoms.
Please tell me what disease this could be or if not, if it could be rat poison although the little kittens who were only 3 months old didn’t eat much outside stuff since they were let out into the garden only a few hours each day and were confined to the house the rest of the time.
All the cats developed the same symptoms and they were all male. Surprisingly, BeadyWhite survived all this but we are afraid for her.
Can somebody please answer these questions?
1. Can we adopt any more cats/kittens since this is a residential area and there are a lot of homeless cats?
2. What if they develop the same symptoms? We just cannot bear to see them suffer and die.
3. What about BeadyWhite? She shared rats and mice with all the other cats but why wasn’t she affected?
4. Could it be some really toxic rat poison not available in the West, which kills rats immediately but takes 1-1/2 days to kill cats which eat the poisoned rats? A farmer told us they use some lethal crystals, to kill the rats in their fields, which turn food black on being mixed with it but are odorless to rats.
If you have had the patience to read through this, please post a reply sooon.
