Kitten died- any ideas why?

[EMIRABBIT1]

Our 12/13wk old kitten died at 3:30am on Mon night/Tues morning of this week. Her older brother alerted us to her passing, and I woke up to see her for her last two minutes.

Background info.: mother cat has had three litters. 1st- 2 stillborn. 2nd- two live, one died around three months. 3rd- one live, just died around 12/13wks.

Being this is the second live birth that passed from her litter & she's had small litters, I'm thinking it's more than a fluke. Stephi, our recently passed kitten was active, ate well, looked good, was quite fat.

She was small for her age and had eye seepage/goo a lot of the time. She slept a lot (kittens do), but could play tough with her big brother. I just wonder if anyone has experienced this, or had any ideas based on her symptoms- small size & eye seepage.

Thankyou for your support.

[MissDolittle]

Hello EMIRABBIT1, and welcome!

I'm sorry to hear about your situation. In order to take a good guess as to
what happened, I have a few questions.

Did she have diarrhea or normal stool? What did you feed her? Dried or
canned food? Was she thin or was the weight ok? How as her fur? Shiny or
dried out? Can you tell what color the gums were? Pink or dark red? Any
other problems such as sneezing, eye infections, etc?

Let me know anything else that comes to mind that could be a clue!

[EMIRABBIT1]

Her stools seemed quite normal. Medium color, good firmness.

She ate dried kitten food. Her mom quit feeding her at what must have been five or six weeks. She would hiss her away from her tit, so we tried her on some solid kitten food we had & she took to it. Makes me wonder if her mom knew something we didn't.

Stephi had gorgeous fur, long haired, fluffy & full. She looked fat, however you could feel her backbone (not see it). I checked her gums about a week before her death, a healthy pink. Other than that, since birth she had eye goo, mostly clear, green once for a few days several weeks ago.

I sure do miss her. It's confusing when she seemed okay.
Thankyou for any ideas you may have.

I've read about the "failure to thrive" concept, but this seems to happen much earlier. I wonder if something just wasn't developed right inside of her & slowly failed, but she sure could get active running all around. Hmm.

[MissDolittle]

Yes, that's what it sounds like. The eye goo shows that the imune system
wasn't working right, so you never know what else fell behind.

[EMIRABBIT1]

man, I sure do miss her. My husband does too. She would perch up on his hip/thigh while we watched TV, so precious. Thankyou.

[MissDolittle]

I sure know what it feels like. Why don't you get another kitty? Not as a
replacement, but as a new addition.

[SnyperKat]

I'm sorry to hear about your kitty, she sounded like such a jewel. :(
I would reccommend what MissD said, though. =) It's always a joy to have life blossoming in the household!

[EMIRABBIT1]

She was a jewel. We're not going to get another, as we have three cats. But we'll remember her sweet spirit. Thankyou all. :)