Vetting Mooksie, a Colony Cat with an Ear Hematoma

Mooksie showed up at his colony with a severely swollen and crumpled right ear a few weeks ago.

He is part of a group of feral cat colonies totaling 30-40 TNR’d cats that Jennie K. cares for in the West Humboldt Park area of Chicago. I bring cat and dog food to Jennie when I have it, because along with the colony cats, she also cares for 11 rescue cats and one dog in her home. Jennie lives on a fixed income and is on disability. She can hardly keep up with feeding, let alone vet care!

My rescue friend Erica was able to trap Mooksie with Jennie’s help, and rushed him to our amazing vets at Elmhurst Animal Care Center. There they determined he had an ear hematoma that required surgery.

Hematomas are extremely painful initially for the cat, and are caused by trauma to the ear. They quickly can become infected and require extensive surgery. They do not heal on their own.

Mooksie went under anesthesia and the vet drained his ear. They used dissolvable sutures with a small opening left in it so that the ear could continue to drain on its own. We asked for dissolvable sutures so that we would not have to re-trap him for removal later. Mooksie required a catheter during surgery, antibiotics (convenia) for the infection, full ear cleaning and oti-pack ear cleaning solution, and intravenous fluids. He was also required to be hospitalized in intensive care.

His total vet bill came out to $531.30 We did not realize how extensive and expensive ear hematomas can be! Ear problems are pretty common for colony cats. If you’d like to make a donation to help cover his care and to continue to feed his colony, you can do so at the donate link at the top of this page, or through PayPal at [email protected]

I returned Mooksie back to Jennie and his colony after a few days of observation and rest. His ear will be permanently folded over, but it looked really good and completely healed.

I took the opportunity to also bring more cat and dog food to Jennie. I made sure Mooksie helped!

He was VERY happy to be returned to his colony, and so was his bonded friend, Bootsie! She came right out to greet him at their feeding station. It was as if she was waiting for him! Jennie said she seemed to be frantic all week missing him. She thinks they are litter mates as they look exactly alike.

Then they started chasing each other.

The cats all live in this abandoned building and are fed by Jennie daily.

They easily access the building through this broken window.

See?

A big thanks to Erica and Jim for trapping and transporting Mooksie, to Jennie for caring for this colony, to our vets for healing these cats, and to all of you who continue to donate towards their care! This couldn’t be done without all of you.