Injured Cat

lmahoney79

Hey, we have been feeding 3 young semi-ferral cats for the last 5 months. They come in the house the odd time. But one of them now seems to have injured her paw as she is limping and cant put it down. Unfortunatley, she is also the most timid and we cant get anywhere near her to have a look at the paw.........Can anyone offer suggestions! If only they had a cat version of 'Sleepy Sleepy Snooze Snooze' to give her!!

irish_goat

It's probably nothing serious but if you're worried you could lure it into the house with some food and then close the doors and windows. It'll eventually go to sleep and you could take a look then.

lmahoney79

we could try but even if by some miracle she did go asleep she would still never stay asleep enough for us to get near her.......she's very nervous of humans! The one time we did shut the door behind us, she paniced like mad and tried to climb through the blinds and getting banging into the glass, would hate to panic her like that again.

star-pants

Do you think perhaps you could get a cat box lined with a towel and put food in and see if she'll go in? You might be able to close it after her?

lmahoney79

yeah we were half thinking of that but again we worried about panicing her also how we would get at the paw to look while locked in the box...

star-pants

well if you put a towel or blanket over the box (after she's in) it might calm her a little perhaps.
As regarding looking at it, I wonder if you got it to a vet they might put on thick gloves and have a try?

lmahoney79

problem with bringing her to vet is cost.....dont know what it is so dont know what it may cost.........and to put it bluntly, im broke! maybe i should just wait a few days to see if it goes away on its own

flower tattoo

funnily enough this happened to me just before christmas.
we 'adopted' 2 stray cats in the summer and one disappeared for a few days and then turned up with a mangled foot.
i took it to the vet but he scratched the vets hand so he was put into a cage and the vet injected him in there so he could take a good look while the cat was asleep.
He scraped loads of pus out of the paw and gave us tablets and anti biotics.
Came to €60. i did explain that it was a stray and i didn't want to spend shed loads on it.
Cat is nearly back to normal now.

lmahoney79

yeah, will see how she is over next few days and if still bad we may have to try get her into a cage and bring her to the vet....wont be easy i can tell ya!!

star-pants

Aye I can understand money and so forth it can be awkward, but fair play for even caring as some people don't.
See how things go

cotton

Where are you based? Could you get a loan of a cat trap?

lmahoney79

in Donabate, i do have a cat cage

easyeason3

If it's a serious infection she will be easy to catch in a few days time because she will get too ill to run away from you, otherwise it should clear up itself.
If you do manage to catch her soak the paw in warm salty water, ooze out the puss if there is any in the paw, soak the paw in warm salty water again, give her a shot of penicillan & keep her in a shed/ garage for a few days with warm bedding.
Squeeze her paw to check if her nails are there & in tact. She could have damaged one of them & may need to see a vet.