inside cats

Keith is home!

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The boy is back!

My daughter and I brought Turmeric to the vet for a check up (driving into a wall of fog on the way!), as she was the most recovered of the cats that had gotten sick – all of which started just within the past few days. The vet checked her over, and she’s fine. It was just difficult to listen to her lungs, because of the purring! It did not take her long to settle in at the clinic at all, and she was more than happy to jump at the vet for attention. :-D

As for Keith, it was decided to try him on antibiotics for two weeks, first. He got an injection at the clinic, and we’ll be giving him half a pill, twice a day. If he gets and stays better after those two weeks, then he just got hit with what the other cats got, but harder. If he doesn’t, then it’s heartworms, and we need to take him back and figure out the next course of action. The vet does think it’s heartworms because, when she did an ultrasound of his heart, she thinks she actually saw a worm. It could have been a “heartstring”, but those should not be visible in an ultrasound.

Personally, I am leaning towards respiratory infection. Even this morning, he seemed a bit better than yesterday, and after we brought him home, he actually showed interest in food and water. Not much, but at least enough for a nibble and a lick. As for the other cats, after examining Turmeric and hearing the descriptions, it sounds like a feline herpes flare up. The clinic knows that both the inside cats and outside cats have it – we’ve brought various kitties for treatment over the past few years. What is possible is that the outside cats have a different strain than the inside cats. While treating Tuxedo Mask, as careful as we were about hand washing, etc., we could have exposed the inside cats to a new strain and, as the vet put it, the two were fighting it out, and some cats were being affected by it more than others. Which makes sense to me.

Also, if it does turn out to be heartworms, this will be the first time the vet has personally seen heartworms in a cat. She sees them in dogs fairly regularly, but it’s just so unusual for cats to get them.

So we will be monitoring Keith and medicating him for the next two weeks (unless he takes a turn for the worse and has to be taken back, of course). Thankfully, my older daughter filled all her slots for quick commissions and was able to pay for it. All those tests added up. :-(

As for the couple of other cats that seem to be having a harder time of it, it was recommended to have them in a steamy bathroom. So my younger daughter will be taking a long, hot bath tonight! With feline company :-D

I am hopeful that Keith will recover just fine.

The Re-Farmer

Another Keith update

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Well, this is curious.

We just talked to the vet. She thinks Keith has heartworms, but she can’t say that with complete certainty from the X-rays.

Heartworms are really unusual in cats. Especially indoor cats. And we have 16 indoor cats, and for all the coughing and sneezing, there is no way they all have heartworms.

So this afternoon, we are bringing in Turmeric. She had similar symptoms, but seems to have recovered. This will give us a comparison.

If we treated him for heartworms, it would be a long term thing, and the medication has risks, because there really is no heartworm treatment for cats. Not a risk we want to take for something he might not have. Alternatively, we can go with an antibiotic treatment, because we do know the cats have feline herpes, and that is much more likely to be an issue.

We will talk about it after Tumeric has been checked over.

I don’t know what I was expecting, but this wasn’t it.

The Re-Farmer

A quick Keith update

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I was hoping to have more news before now, but I figured I’d better post while we wait.

My daughter and I headed out to the vet first thing, shooting to get there when they opened at 8am. My daughter tried calling shortly before, and on her second try, someone answered. She quickly explained our situation and told them we were on the way.

They had three surgeries booked for this morning. Depending on the timing, there was a possibility the vet could quickly check Keith out before going into her first surgery. If not, we could drop him off and she would try to look at him in between surgeries.

She still hadn’t arrived when we got there, one minute after opening, so my daughter did a drop off. We will get a call when they are ready. They got permission to do various types of tests, if necessary.

As for Keith, he was isolated with me for the night, but one of our other cats joined us, too. It seems the coughing and sneezing has finally affected one of the cats we brought with us during the move. He’d been fine until last night. He’s 10 years old now, so we seriously considered bringing him in, too, but after observing him for a while, decided against it. They both had access to food, water and litter, but touched none of them by morning. Keith did have a coughing fit until he threw up, then did that face grabbing thing, once during the night, but thankfully there was no blood this time. He almost looked a bit better.

Most of the cats are actually fine. Just a few are coughing or sneezing. Beep Beep has her occasional coughing fits, but she’s always had that, even before she became in indoor cat, so that’s not out of the ordinary for her. Susan does the same thing, so they don’t seem to have picked up anything new.

Hopefully, we will have good news soon, but with three surgeries, it might be a while before the vet can even look at him. We shall see.

The Re-Farmer

Not the post I intended to write

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Okay, so this has been a weird day, but I’ll get right into what just happened.

I had just settled at my computer and started a post when I heard a cat having issues behind me. I found Keith, who has been having an odd cough lately, horking like he was about to throw up. He didn’t actually throw up more than some spit, but then he flung himself to the floor and began using both front paws to pull at his face, as if trying to get something out of his mouth. When I tried to reach him, he ran off. When he headed up the stairs, I called on the girls to check on him.

Then I went to clean up the little bit of a mess on the floor.

Wipe, wipe… red?

Which is when one of my daughters came rushing in to tell me that Keith was throwing up blood.

I quickly went online to find the emergency number for the vet. Their website says they are open 24/7 for emergencies, but they also had extended clinic hours. They were still open! I tried calling, but no answer. Just a machine giving their new hours, and saying to call back later if calling during office hours.

My daughters, meanwhile, got Keith into the carrier. While we drove to town, my younger daughter kept trying to phone the vet.

No answer.

We finally get there, and they were closed! There was a quickly made sign on the door saying they were closed and, for emergencies, had the name and phone number for a veterinary hospital I’ve never heard of. I called while my daughter updated the family (I love technology!).

The emergency vet turned out to be in the city.

I asked if there was an emergency vet in our area, because there’s no way we were going to put Keith through such a long drive.

Turns out there are none. At least none in this town.

So much for 24/7 emergency vet care!

Keith seems to be stable, though still coughing, so we will take him to the vet when they open in the morning. Until then, he is isolated with me in my office/bedroom for the night.

It seems to weird to not have any emergency veterinary services in our area! I just finished doing a search, and found one in another larger town, but they are connected to the one we usually go to – in fact, I got directed to the same website.

As to the clinic we tried, they should have been open, but given the type of sign they had on the door, it seems like they had to close unexpectedly.

We plant to be there before they open in the morning.

The Re-Farmer

David the Magnificent

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I don’t tend to post pictures of the inside cats very often.

To be honest, it’s only partly because of how hard it is to get them sitting still long enough for a photo. It’s also partly because I’m a terrible housekeeper and the backgrounds are always a disaster! LOL

Every now and then, though…

… I can get some wonderful shots.

This old plant stand has become a favourite spot for the cats to sit and watch the activity at the feeding station outside.

David is the most magnificent of them all.

The Re-Farmer

Growing Saffron?

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I spotted the most adorable furry spice girl in a plant pot this morning.

When I walked past the living room and saw Saffron in there, watching the birds out the window, I just had to sneak off and get my phone for some pictures!

I’d dug up this old plant stand – I remember my mother had a massive Christmas cactus in it, when I was a child, which means it’s probably older than me – for one of our re-potted aloe vera, hoping the cats would be deterred from digging in the dirt. I was wrong. The plants are now safely in the aquarium greenhouse, but I hadn’t put the plant stand back in storage yet.

I think I’ll leave it.

The Re-Farmer

Kitty count and plant prison

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I notice the cats outside have been really appreciating the digging of paths around the yard!

I counted “only” 17 in total this morning. I did not see the newcomer. Hopefully, they are all doing fine in their little shelters all over, when they’re not using the ones in the yard.

Rolando Moon had been posing like an adorable loaf, but in the time it took me to dig my phone out of my pocket, she decided to come over for pets.

I’ve had some frustrations with the indoor cats and the repotted plants that are finally inside. Though they have been liberally – even excessively – doused in cayenne pepper, we seem to have one cat that is not at all bothered by it. I think it’s Cabbages, but I’m not sure. They do their dastardly deeds when we are not around to see them. Yesterday morning I into the living room and found two of the aloe vera had been thoroughly dug into, with soil scattered all over. My daughters cleaned that up while I was outside, thankfully.

Last night, our vulnerable pots went into plant prison.

The big aquarium greenhouse set up has been repurposed to house the aloe. The two on the right were the ones that got dug up. We’ll see if they survive! My daughter’s orchids will be going in here, too, because the cats keep going after them, even though they are all hanging kokedama.

We brought in the aquarium lights yesterday evening, but I didn’t turn them on until today. They had been in the sun room and were pretty cold.

It didn’t take long for Saffron to rediscover her favourite butt warmer!

It’s a good thing she is such a tiny little thing. :-D

We’ll be using the aquariums as greenhouses to start our onion seeds in a couple of months. Hopefully, by then, the aloe will be well established in their pots, and we’ll be able to move them out to make room.

The Re-Farmer

Morning Fur Babies

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Every now and then, I’ll walk into the bathroom and find the sink looking back at me.

While there are several cats that like to drink from the tap, David likes to sleep in the sink.

Is that the most adorable face, or what? What a sweetie!!

The outside cats were in full cuteness mode, too!

Also, I have been able to confirm that Tuxedo Mask is, indeed, a male. I was able to confirm one of the ‘icouses, too, but I’m not sure which one it was. It wasn’t Bradicous, with his (her?) distinctive white tail tip, and it wasn’t the one ‘icous that has mostly white hind legs. That’s the one next to Junk Pile in the kibble tray on the far right, inside the kibble house. The others can be told apart mostly from their faces, and… well… it wasn’t the face I was seeing at the time! ;-)

It was a very wet morning, but I’m hoping things will dry up this afternoon. The weather forecasts have changed, and it looks like we’ve got just today and tomorrow to get work done before we start getting rain and snow over the next several days.

Time to get at it, as much as we can!

The Re-Farmer

So many kitties, inside and out!

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The outside cats were out in full force, eager for breakfast, but first I wanted to share some indoor adorableness!

Cabbages and Cheddar, all snuggled together for a nap!

The size difference just blows me away. Cabbages is more than a year old now, so she is pretty much her full adult size. Cheddar… he’s just huge.

Yesterday evening, I decided to use our Roku device and watch some TV. We’ve got the Great Courses on Amazon Prime, and I’m watching Cooking Through the Ages right now. Cheddar decided to join me and trap my hand under his head as a pillow!

He eventually got driven out, though, when Tissue came over and started bugging him. After he left…

… she took his spot!

She would not stop squirming, though, and when I brought my phone over to take pictures…

… she went for it, and tried to eat it!

Gosh, she has the strangest facial structure! Like a little alien.

Meanwhile, her younger siblings outside were joining the breakfast buffet.

While I was pouring the kibble out, Broccoli jumped into the kibble house, and I actually got to pet her! She was torn between startled and wanting to go at the food. The confused expression she gave me as I pet her back was hilarious. She seemed to like the pets, though, and tolerated them for a little while.

There are nine kittens in the above photo. Potato Beetle is one of the adults, and he’s at the tray on the ground. Butterscotch is inside the kibble house. Nutmeg was around, too, but on the other side of the kibble house, out of view.

Rosencrantz, Nosencrantz and Toesencrantz, enjoying breakfast together!

More progress; while walking back from pouring kibble onto the tray under the shrine, Nosencrantz came running right up to me, and let me pet her, before continuing on to the food!

I really, really like Nosencrantz.

I guess this is a good time to promote our Ko-fi page. If you are interested in helping with the feeding and care for the kitties, you can click here, or on the donation button on the side bar. All donations go towards the cats, either for their food, to get them fixed, or for any needed vet care, and are gratefully appreciated.

The Re-Farmer