I have two kittens, around two weeks old. Both was to vet last Thurs. and he said they have eye infections, gave them and me eye drops and gave them each a antibiotic shot and said to bring them back Sat. I think both kittens have URI as they were abandoned. And one is really weak and will not eat. I have force fed him with a dropper every two hours but cannot get much into him. I also put him in the bathroom for steam and it helped very little. My question is; should I continue to force feed him and if steam helps, how often? He is gasping for air but he is not lifeless yet. The vets here in Germany are not as advanced as in the states. Is he suffering? Please help me! Thank you so very much, Linda

Putting little kit in the bathroom with steam is not going to help him with upper respiratory infection. It will only aggravate it. He needs to be kept warm. Yes he is suffering and probably has distemper. Wait, do what you can, keep warm get fluids into him.

Tick

You say the vets the Germany are not as advanced as in the US... how many vets have you tried.
If the kitten is not breathing normally you NEED to go to a vet and get him treated.

I do not believe that no vet in Germany can help.

I don't see how the german vets are not as far advanced as north american continent. I simply don't believe that. Europe isn't in the dark ages any longer.

Tick

Actually, I've had a lot of experience working with people outside the U.S, and I've found that vets in other parts of the world in general absolutely are not as caught up as they are in the U.S. Which is sad, since most of the ones in the U.S. aren't really quite current either.

They should know how to deal with an upper respirtory infection, yes, but in a lot of other ways, they are not really caught up with current stuff, no. (And that doesn't mean they're in the dark ages - it means most of them are still in the 1990's.)

So believe it.

Strange you should say that about vets. There is one of the best veterinary hospitals in North America right here in Ontario, the University of Guelph which as a rather large attendance from the U.S.. We have some really great vets in town and I find them quite knowledgeable in every respect treating large and small animals as in any farming community. When I lived in the States I had the pleasure to meet some really good travelling vets because I had horses and other large animals, fowl as well, who were usually getting legs ripped off from being in the horse stalls with the horses.

I didn't actually say they are in the dark ages.

Ms tick

Well, I did say the rest of the world "in general," which was not implying any specific one country. Even though it's next door, I haven't heard much about Canadian vets in particular. Probably the vast majority of the non-U.S. people I know are from the UK, and yes quite a few in Germany and other European countries. Australia. Etc. Ran across one person from Singapore and that was a disaster.

And my experience is with cats, which perhaps I should have stressed but didn't think about since this is a cat forum. Large animal vets could be entirely different. I know there's also some problems with dogs, but mostly I know cats. This is partially because a lot of research has been done on other animals or even assumed from humans, and not on cats. So some of the more recent research that has been done on cats has not even gotten to many vets in the U.S. and less so in a lot of other countries. (I feel like too many have yet to recognize that a cat is a cat and a dog is a dog and a rat is a rat... ) Worse is the vets who just don't want to pay attention.

My experience is that everyday caregivers can sometimes have better info than vets... I can understand why a vet doesn't want to trust some stranger someone found on the internet. So I have a collection of articles by research vets, some presented at annual conferences and such, for the sake of legitimacy, and it still gets ignored. Especially if it seems too non-traditional, even though a lot of that stuff is fairly traditional among online folks.

As for the Dark Ages - why take that so literally? It's just a saying.