Feral cat with nasty looking eye

Meowy Catkin

Meowy Catkin

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A tiny, skinny black cat has been pinching food off the bird table for a couple of days. She had a terrible looking eye. I'm not sure exactly what is going on with it because she is so nevous that I can only look at her through the windows. At first I thought that she only had one eye but I now think that the other eye is there but possibly ulcerated or injured.

I have asked the neighbours about her and she has two kittens (was three but one died) that she seems to move about the area. One neighbour is feeding her but she is in her 80's and with very bad eyesight and I don't think that she has realised what a state the poor little thing is in.

I'm going to call my vet for advice but I wondered if anyone has any experiance of bad eye injuries/problems or ferral cats with kittens.

I would be happy to give her and the kittens a home, if needed as stable cats once her eye is sorted and she is spayed (I would be willing to pay for this). I'm worried about catching her as she moves her young kittens around and they are too young to be apart from her at the moment. Has anyone taken on feral cats as stable cats? Is it a stupid idea?
 
Contact the Cats protection league I think they will be able to lend you a trap. Bate it with food to catch her. Vets have special baskets to enable them to sedate wild cats before they examine them. You can also get a voucher from CPL for cheaper spaying.

Make sure you know where the kittens are and that they are eating before you catch her. I am a sucker for feral cats and have about 16 in my barn right now eek!!! They breed faster than I can catch and rehome them. The trouble started when an neighbours cat had a litter.

If you can treat and spay her and give her a routine she should not stray. I have three feral cats living in my house now and they are adorable. No more mice in the feed room either.
 
Ok, after alot of ringing and talking to the neighbours we have worked out that this is a different feral black cat from the one with kittens. The mother feral cat was spotted yesterday and both of it's eye's are fine and the two kittens look healthy too. The one with the bad eye came to my house today (I hadn't seen it at all yesterday) and I managed to put some food out, which it (no idea what sex it is now) came back to eat once I had gone. If anything, it's eye looks worse. :(

I have managed to track down a cat trap, which I will collect tomorrow. This was very hard as all but one of the recues in my area had all their traps on loan to other people. Anyhoo, if luck is on my side, I might be able to catch this cat soon and get it's eye treated/removed.
 
I'm glad the one with the eye isn't the one with the kittens - makes it less complicated. I hope you manage to catch it though - the eye sounds really painful. Good luck!
 
I've had a busy time.

The trap was collected yesterday lunchtime, the people at Shropshire cat rescue were wonderful and very helpful :D . So I came away with the trap, instructions and a tin of pilchards in tomato sauce! It took all of 1/2 an hour to catch the cat in the evening because it was so hungry and the pilchards were irresistable. I've taken it to the vet this morning and I'm now hoping that the vet will call later with a good progress report. The only bad thing is that if the blood test comes back positive, the cat will have to be PTS.
 
Faracat said:
I've had a busy time.

The trap was collected yesterday lunchtime, the people at Shropshire cat rescue were wonderful and very helpful :D . So I came away with the trap, instructions and a tin of pilchards in tomato sauce! It took all of 1/2 an hour to catch the cat in the evening because it was so hungry and the pilchards were irresistable. I've taken it to the vet this morning and I'm now hoping that the vet will call later with a good progress report. The only bad thing is that if the blood test comes back positive, the cat will have to be PTS.
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Hi Faracat, well done for catching the kitty.
Really hope the bloods are clear, and that the cat can come home to you.
I'm also waiting for blood test results on a feral kitten that the CPL volunteer caught for me on Sunday night.
Keeping my fingers crossed that your kittys in the clear - hope mine is too, now that I've made the decision to add a fourth cat to the clan
I had a lot of positive input from Forum members to help me with this :-)
 
Snap! This would be cat number four for me too! :)

Good luck with the blood test results for your kitten, I really hope that they are clear. I'm quite worried waiting for the results, my tummy is all in knots.
 
Really pleased you managed to catch it. I hope you are able to keep it, but if it (he?) has to be put down then at least you will have spared him loads and loads of pain and living outdoors during terrible weather. Really sad he ended up living rough as he was probably somebody's pet once.

Fingers crossed for you.
 
Faracat said:
Snap! This would be cat number four for me too! :)

Good luck with the blood test results for your kitten, I really hope that they are clear. I'm quite worried waiting for the results, my tummy is all in knots.
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I had a big debate, but was reassured when some of the other forum members told me how many cats they were up to - one had 13 cats and 3 dogs - (i've got a very tolerant cat proof Labrador in my menagerie)
And thanks for the good luck wishes - i'm keeping everything crossed for you, me and our prospective kittycats :-)

Know how you feel about waiting for results, I'm taking my 16yr old cat for another check up tonight as she's lost a lot of weight over the last few months and although happy in herself I think she's got dreaded kidney disease breath.
She was tested for Thyroid in August and that came back clear, but again I know tonight is going to be another round of tests as she's a lot more frail than she used to be.
Still not like bad results indicating my lab may have an auto immune disease - turned out the vets machine was faulty, but I had a hellish 2 weeks as she was only 10 months old at the time.

When will you find out? I was advised up to 3 days......
 
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Very sad update.

My wonderful and very kind vet has just rung and the little cat is no more. :( Her (she was a little girl after all) eyeball was actually burst and very badly infected. The infection had also spread and there was no hope for recovery. I am so gutted over this, I really had hoped for a better outcome but as the vet said, she was well fed and had shelter for her last few days and at least she didn't die a slow death in the cold.
 
Thank you everyone for your kind words.

I would do it all again as her suffering was ended and it was the right thing to do. However, I can't help but run through all the 'what ifs'. I wish that I had managed to catch her a few days earlier as maybe the infection wasn't so bad then, but realisticly with the confusion over the kittens and the trouble I had getting hold of a trap I couldn't really have caught her any quicker.

It's still sad though as both the vet and I think that she was someone's pet once. She wasn't wild enough to be a true feral.
 
Faracat said:
Thank you everyone for your kind words.

I would do it all again as her suffering was ended and it was the right thing to do. However, I can't help but run through all the 'what ifs'. I wish that I had managed to catch her a few days earlier as maybe the infection wasn't so bad then, but realisticly with the confusion over the kittens and the trouble I had getting hold of a trap I couldn't really have caught her any quicker.

It's still sad though as both the vet and I think that she was someone's pet once. She wasn't wild enough to be a true feral.
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It's so heartening to hear what you trouble you took to help out the very distressed kitty. As others have said, far better that's she's now peaceful and pain-free. She'd have had a slow death otherwise. Brilliant; I hope I could be as thoughtful and determined as you were in this situation. Blue and Genie agree (2 black cats, one is a rescue!)
 
Try not to think about the what ifs, like you said, you couldn't possibly have done anything sooner.
You made a lot of effort to get her, and got her to the vet as soon as you could, giving her every chance, plus a loving permanent home to boot.
My little feral kitty is coming home tomorrow, but it could have been the opposite if her bloods weren't ok.
She's touched your life, and you can look in the mirror and know you saved her from further suffering, and should take comfort from those positive steps you took.
 
I've now given the trap to my neighbour (with permission from the Shropshire cat rescue) so that they can catch the feral with the kittens. I'm really hoping that this cat and her babies have a positive outcome.

Thanks again for all your kind words.

Millimoo, I'd love to see a photo of your feral kitten. I'm so glad that the blood tests were ok.
 
So sorry Faracat, you're a very kind and caring person. You did the best thing and at least the little cat didn't suffer a prolonged and painful end.

Good luck with the cat catching.
 
Faracat said:
Millimoo, I'd love to see a photo of your feral kitten. I'm so glad that the blood tests were ok.
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She's arriving today, and I will post as soon as I get near enough without frightening her - and subject to working out how to post.
When they tested her, they also de-flead and neutered her - they think she's no more than 5 months old, but is tiny due to her poor start in life.
Bless her, she's more frightened than feisty, so hopefully she should be easier to handle once she's over the initial shock of her new home.

Hope your friend catches the kitties and mum ok.
I'm sure the local Cat Protection League will be very grateful - they were glad I called them about my little girly as she wasn't far off breeding age.
Poor little kitty though, they said she wouldn't have survived the winter due to size and body weight..... so she's a lucky girl

I'm also open to any suggestions to name her - she's small, black and fluffy.
 
I wish that I was good at naming animals. It took me about a month to finally think of a name for my kitten. :o

I'm sure that your little cat will settle in soon, they always seem to know when people are trying to help them. :)
 
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