I am fostering a mother cat with 6 kittens. I picked her up from the shelter on Wednesday and she hasn't eaten at all since early on Wednesday (before I got her). She has an upper respiratory infection, they told me, and I think she has worms too. I've given her deworming medication, but I still can't get her to eat. Her eyes are quite running with gunk and she seems to be keeping them closed most of the time - probably are painful. I've tried a humidifier, a warm compress, eucalyptus oil, tuna, heated canned food, tuna water, and even put the food in her mouth. She just spits it back out. I'm wondering how I can get her to eat and how long she can go without eating before she has no milk left for the kittens. It's Friday now, so it's day 3 of no eating. I did see her have a small drink last night, so that's something... Any thoughts??

Does the shelter have a vet on staff? I'd run your concerns past him if they do. I'm also concerned that you dewormed her, since that might have an affect on her milk and kittens. I assume that you are bottle-feeding the kittens? If not, you need to start, since three days without food means that her milk production is probably very low.

You need to call the shelter and tell them what is going on. If she is not drinking anything she can get dehydrated really quickly and die. She needs to be seen by a vet to figure out why she is not eating and be given liquids.