Kitten On The Brink Of Starvation After Ingesting 21 Hairbands

An underweight stray kitten has been named Hope by the team at our Birmingham Adoption Centre after she bounced back against all odds.

The kitten, who is believed to be around five months old, was found collapsed in a garden by a kind member of the public, who carried her in a cardboard box to the centre.

“The poor girl seemed lifeless and nothing more than skin and bones,” said Deputy Manager Paula Beswick. “When Hope did try to walk, she was very unsteady. We rushed her immediately to the vets who put her straight onto fluid and antibiotic drips.”

Hope was taken to Your Vets in Olton where she was found to weigh just 1.59kg, the weight of a kitten half her age. She was extremely dehydrated and malnourished but with no evident injuries.

Hope was nursed and supported to gain strength but she was still extremely poorly with no clear cause for her symptoms.

After various investigations, an ultrasound revealed a mass in Hope’s intestines. With her liver beginning to shut down, Hope was too weak to survive an operation to remove the mass, or even have much blood taken, and it was unclear whether she would survive.

Luckily, after five days of intensive nursing Hope was strong enough to have the operation and 21 hairbands were removed from her intestine.

“Hope must be a little fighter as she pulled through after the bands were removed,” said Paula. “She has been through such a lot in her young life already.

“We don’t know how the hairbands got there. We can only imagine that somebody was playing with her and using the hairbands as a toy which she was mistakenly swallowing or simply eating them because she was so hungry.”

Hope’s case highlights the importance of using appropriately designed toys to play with cats and never leaving them alone with anything that could be mistakenly swallowed such as hairbands, ribbons or buttons.