How to ensure new kittens are healthy for my senior cats?

Question

We have 3 senior cats, all from the same litter. 12 yrs old. One had lymphoma 2 yrs ago, treated with chemo and it is in remission now. Chemo stopped about 18 mths ago. We want to adopt 1 or 2 kittens from a shelter but we are so afraid that we will bring home an illness to our cats. How can we be sure that the kittens are healthy? Do certain things take a while to appear? Are there important tests that cant be run on a kitten until they get to certain age? Pet's info: Cat | American Shorthair | Female | spayed

Dr. Elizabeth · Accepted Answer

I'm glad you are doing your homework before bringing new fur babies into the situation. Most shelters will routinely deworm their pets and test for leukemia and FIV. So you definitely want to make sure these treatments/tests are run prior to adopting the new kittens. Its not unusual for new cats and kittens to break with upper respiratory infections within the first 2 weeks of being adopted. Herpes virus is very common in cats (some estimate 80% of cats carry the virus) and it comes out in the stress related to being in a shelter and being rehomed. Now, this is not going to happen to every cat/kitten but its not unusual. Therefore, your best chance to avoid this would be to get a cat/kitten that has been kept in a foster home. It will likely still have herpes but the environment should be less stressful, therefore less risk of the virus becoming active. Keep the new pet separated for 2 weeks. That way if it does have an outbreak, you will at least have it contained. You could also put your cats on 500mg of lysine twice daily to help booster their immune system. Kittens get 250mg twice daily. Please post again if you have any further questions!

How to ensure new kittens are healthy for my senior cats?

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