Hi, everybody.
This is Beignet and she is a very underweight uh and dehydrated kitten.
The reason that I know she's dehydrated
is because I did a tent test on her.
A tent test is when you lift up the skin like a tent,
which you can try on your hand right now.
If you lift it up, it should drop right back down immediately if you're hydrated.
If you are not hydrated, then you're gonna lift up the skin,
and it's going to slowly go back down or it might even just stay up
So you can do this, you can test this on a kitten.
On this kitten, I'm lifting up the [skin] on her scruff,
and it should plop right back down.
But for her, it's kind of staying up.
So you can tell, you can just feel,
that she does not have adequate hydration.
So what I'm going to do with her is I'm going to do a round of subcutaneous fluids,
which is going to go just right into her scruff and form a little bubble,
and that is going to give her some quick emergency fluids
that she desperately needs for her body to continue going on.
[sink running]
Okay. So what I have here is LRS, or Lactated Ringer's Solution,
which you can get at your veterinarian.
And what you're going to need is this.
and then you might be used to seeing a line
That comes from this when you're doing with cats.
When I do it with kittens, I just need
a 10 cc syringe, 10 milliliters,
And then I prefer using a butterfly needle for this because it helps when they're a little wiggly.
So these are the three things that you're going to need. Your LRS,
your 10 cc syringe, and your sterile butterfly needle.
Okay, so while the LRS is
warming up in some warm water,
I'm going to take out my butterfly needle
and I'm going to hook it up to the syringe.
Beignet is one pound.
She's definitely very underweight and very dehydrated
and she's just one pound, so
She's going to get 10 milliliters
of Lactated Ringer's in her scruff.
So this is pretty warm.
You don't want it to be cold at all, you want it to be nice and comfortably warm.
And then you're going to take your needle
and there's this little rubber area right here that you can actually
suck the fluid out of.
Okay. So I got the fluid out of the bag into my 10 cc syringe.
And there might be a little bit of air in it,
so then I turn it upside down
and I just kind of make sure that that air comes out by...
bringing it out a little bit
a little bit until I have a steady flow. Okay.
So now I have no bubbles
and it's 10 milliliters of
fluids with a butterfly needle attached to it.
Okay, so this area of the scruff right here has some really nice loose skin
and you're basically going to pull that up.
That's where we're going to fill the kitten's body with lots of hydration.
The needle, as you might be able to see, is longer on one end than on the other.
So with the pointy side down,
I'm just going to pick up her scruff,
and this is just going to go just right under the skin.
So...
Poke right under the skin.
And it's in. Now the nice thing about a butterfly needle is
if she were to be wiggly like she might be...
it's okay.
Here I go putting... the...
little fluid bubble right under her skin.
and if she wiggles around with a butterfly needle, it's okay because...
you know, it's on a line. So... it's okay.
So she can kind of have a little bit more wiggle room.
And that's it! so all 10 cc's went in her.
I pulled the needle out. This needs to go...
you know, into a biohazard bin.
And then...
That's it. And then you can see this nice bubble.
I don't know if you can see it in the video,
But there's a nice little bubble under her skin
where she's going to absorb all of that hydration.
And this is such an important skill to be able to do
if you are working with really sick kittens
because dehydration can very, very quickly lead to decline, especially in little kittens.
So you want to make sure that anytime you have a sick and dehydrated kitten
that you are helping keep them hydrated.
Whether that's through oral,
Pedialyte and making sure they have enough water
or if it's through a little bit of a more advanced skill
like doing subcutaneous fluids.
So if you're doing lots of sick kittens, I definitely recommend this.
It can really help turn things around for them.
Hopefully Beignet will be feeling better soon
Thank you guys so much for watching and please check out all of my videos
at youtube.com/kittenlady.