Four days ago I found a 3 week old kitten in my building's basement laundry room -- she was living inside the back of a washing machine (there is a big hole in the back where the wires come out). She could barely walk but was trying to approach people and crying. Someone had put out a plastic tray with newspaper in it, a dish of water, and another food dish that I suspect had cow milk in it. The food dish was pushed over, but the other two were clearly too tall for the kitten to access.
There were no other kittens or adult cats around (I waited about 3 hours). However our basement always smells like cat pee, there are feral cats everywhere because the super leaves out food and water for them. (Obviously this isn't good for anybody, but we're working on that).
Anyway, we snagged that kitten and brought her upstairs. She is isolated in the bathroom because we have a 17 year old cat and don't want to expose her to any bacteria and germs. Grandma cat is not too excited about this recent development, but so far she's hanging in there.
OK, now about my kitten's health (if you're still with me)... She was definitely dehydrated when we found her (see for yourself: http://www.flickr.com/photos/treether/3340552614/).
She was strong enough to gobble down kitten formula, and three days later she looks like this: http://www.flickr.com/photos/treether/3341168865/.
She's had diarrhea since we found her but recently it's getting more solid -- kind of half/half. She is crying when she poos and pees and she has "donut butt" but it's not red and it seems to go down in between poos.
We took her to the vet the day after we found her and the vet didn't seem worried. She said the kitten was too young for worm medicine and to bring her back in 3 weeks. Given that it's been 2 days since then and she still has some diarrhea and her butt is puffy, do any kitten experts think we should bring her back in to the vet? Is it really not safe for 3-4 week old kittens to get worm meds? If it was cow's milk that gave her the runs (or for that matter any other gross stuff she ate in the basement), would it still be affecting her 3 days later?
I know every cat is different, but I'm just second-guessing this vet's advice. She was from a clinic that I've been going to for years, but she was a new vet I'd never met before.
Any advice would be much appreciated! Thanks for reading this!
