Hey again, Uggers my new kitten is 12 weeks old and has a cleft lip. It doesnt affect his palate and he gets on fine with it, eats and drinks fine etc.

The only problem is that he gets a 'crust' of snot (sorry ) just in the enterance to his nostrel of the affected side that my vet has told me to keep cleaned to reduce the risk of infections.

I have to do this by using a dry cotton bud and hooking it out. My problem is he HATES me doing this (cant say I blame him) he squirms and fights me when I try and do this. Any ideas how I can make what is going to be a lifelong action more bearable for him??

Poor kitten! I imagine the crust might be hard and it might hurt when you remove, right? Maybe a bit of olive oil will help it to dislodge without pulling the skin?

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Is it not possible for the vet to surgically repair it like they do in children?

The vet doesnt want to repair it as apart from this problem with the crust it doesnt cause him any problems (yet) He is the second kitten this year I have handreared for the RSPCA that has had a cleft lip and Ozone's one was so much worse food would literally go up into his nasal cavity if you werent careful.

Uggers thankfully has alot of the internal structures of the nose and it is just a minor cleft although it looks bad (I would put pics up but only have photos on phone and cant figure out how to get them onto this netbook )

At the moment he absoultly goes crazy for his wet food so when I have a little go with the cotton bud I always give him a small amount of food afterwards in the hope that he realises that when he puts up with my proding something nice will come after.... well thats the hope.

He seems to be really sore if there is any pressure on the cartilage in his nose where this crust sits the vet tried a wet cotton bud before but it would not come out as it needs friction to move it. He is a darling kitten and I really dont want to have to be stressing him out every couple of days if I can help it so I need him to accept the cleaning as something that isnt nice but will be over in a few mins.

Like Tatilie says. A little bit of olive oil. Let it soak in and then it should be easier to get off.
One of mine use to have a crusty nose from messing about in the garden and the only way i could get if off was to put olive oil on it.

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thanks for the olive oil tip then will have to try that xxx

Can you clean it every day, or after each meal, so its not hard. It might be the fact its dried onto his skin thats hurting it so doing it more often might be less painful.

I clean my kittens eyes everyday and Gloworm hates it but he always is friends with me afterwards.

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I would do it everyday if I could but Uggs gets so stressed out with me even putting him in the position to clean it and he is struggling (I dread to think how he going to be when he bigger ) I think I need to work on him just letting me touch his nose that at the moment he hates even when I am not cleaning it. He had a feather stuck on his good nostrel the other day and hated me taking that off.

I am so used to be able to do anything to my older cat and stupidly thought that as I had hand reared him from 2 1/2 weeks old it would be something he would allow me to do *wrong*

I use olive oil for our little mans dried up boogers, just apply it to the area with an ear bud, once an hour before and then once again about 10 minutes before you try and remove it.

For our cat the pain is caused by the hairs being pulled as the snot dries and contracts, and this is why it is also painful to remove as it pulls hairs out with it. To be honest, the olive oil only loosens it up a little and I have to use Tweezers to pull it off completely, otherwise he gets a little hitler-tache if I leave it for a few days.

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this is inside his cleft so not stuck on his fur I think like I said that he is sensitive to the pressure on the cartilage as i press down to try and hook the crust