My cat has a small bite wound on his ear from another cat. How can I treat it?

Question

I squeezed the pus out, irrigated the wound with saline solution and applied antibiotic cream. If I keep the wound clean, puss free and keep applying ointment, will it heal or should I just take him to a vet?

Answer 1

The cat should be fine as long as the redness goes away and the puss dries up, if you notice in 24 hours that the wound doesn't look better it should be seen.  Sounds like you are a perfect nurse.

Answer 2

Sounds like you are doing a good job keeping it clean, but he might need antibiotics for the wound to completely heal. Just keep an eye on it and if it doesn't start healing take him to the vet.

Answer 3

If your kitty has it's shots, it's fine with what you've done. Cats can take a lot of bites, sores and scrapes with but some thorough sanitation of the wounds and triple antibiotic cream. They also have a much higher tolerance to pain than humans (what looks horrid to us -- like ulcers and abscessed cat bites -- the cats deal with it very well).

Butter boy had a ugly cat bite abscess that made his leg swell, and drain pus, but within 6 weeks it was healed. Months later, today, absolutely no signs of that gapping hole and flesh exist. He was even playing with the other kitties as nothing was wrong (had to isolate him inside for his own sake!).

FYI: for those who can't make it to the vet (as unlike with humans there's no Medicaid to pay their bills; and some locales the vets will NOT treat the pet unless you pay the bill in full), please goto sites like these...

http://www.calvetsupply.com/

And get the appropriate medicine, antibiotics and wound treatments. Products like this...

http://www.calvetsupply.com/index.asp?Pa...

can make or break a wound from being able to heal on it's own, or requiring terrible debridement at the vet. Most well stocked farm and seed stores will have the above and other wound treatment products at that site (a heads up for more rural owners). So stock up on the essentials, because there's no telling kitty will be sick and injured and you can't afford a vet visit (feral maintainers have no choice but to be vet techs themselves to save kitties, and it's sites like those that lets them -- and some rescue groups -- keep pets alive, as they too can't afford $200 per pet vet bills, even reduced to $100).