# Help! My sister got scratched by a 7 to 8 month old feral!



## pause4paws (Feb 12, 2005)

Hi there,

My family and I care for about five feral cats who live in our back garden. There are four females and one male. We've decided to spay the females, starting with the kittens. One of the kittens (7 to 8 months old) just appears to have come into heat and when my sister attempted to pick her up (she's allowed herself to be picked up before) she turned around and scratched my sister rather deeply on both her hands, causing it to bleed rather badly. We've cleaned the wound out and she's washed it and put savlon on it. Is there anything else we should be doing? She's worried and wondering if she can possibly contract any diseases, is this possible?

Any help appreciated - thanks!

T


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## rosalie (Oct 9, 2003)

Ouch..yes, it's posible to contract diseases, even if the kitties appear to be healthy; you did the right thing in washing and desinfecting right away.
Check with a doctor what he advises for your area...has your sister picked up the kitty before? They freak out if it's a person they don't know that touchs them and these claws carry all kinds of germs..as a rule of thumb it's better to go easy with ferals.
Wonderful you're taking such good care of these kitties..


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## OsnobunnieO (Jun 28, 2004)

I'm sorry about your sister and hope it all turns out well.

Are you only going to have the females spayed? What about the male? I think its for the best as unneutered males fight a lot more and that leads to a wide spread of diseases, such as FIV and Feline Lukemia. Not to mention that its cheaper to neuter males than spay females, so you wouldn't be adding too much money (I figure if you're willing to pay for four females adding a male won't be too much of a problem).

You're still doing a great thing by having them fixed. Keep up the good work  And have your sister (and yourself or anyone else who goes around the cats) be a little more careful... if they are feral they will be very unpredictable... just use caution


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## pause4paws (Feb 12, 2005)

Thanks Rosalie and OsnobunnieO! Forgive me for not seeing this before but I haven't been on the forum for a while. I had exams. (I did rather well, though. )  

My sister is fine, we trotted along to get her scratches and things checked out. So that's going well. We're going to spay them all, the females and the male but now we're going to be sensible and wait for the traps to arrive. It's funny, they do allow themselves to be picked up at certain times but only to be moved to another bowl of food. *chuckles*

Thanks again. 

T


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