Last week I adopted, what I suspect was, a four week old kitten. My sister found it crying on their property in the country, watched it to see if the mother returned, and the mother did not return after 12 hours. We took it in to temporarily care for it until we figured out what to do with it. We found out that shelters won't take kittens under eight weeks old. A few days after we brought it in, the mother reappeared with another kitten and settled down in an abandoned shed. We thought about returning the kitten to the mother at that point, but the mother is feral, and we knew that most feral kittens don't live much longer than a couple years. We had already bonded with the kitten and vice versa, so we decided to simply keep it.
This is my first kitten, so I'm a little anxious about ensuring I'm doing all that I need to do to care for it. The kitten has been seen by a vet after I was concerned that it hadn't pooped in 48 hours. It got a clear bill of health from the vet, and has since turned into a pooping machine. It immediately learned how to use the litter box, and we haven't had a single accident outside of it. That's given a room relocation as well. We initially started it on KMR formula via a kitten bottle. It didn't seem to be able to figure out how to feed via bottle despite all of our efforts and researching. We switched then to a gruel of KMR and soft food for kittens, which he is still being fed and we occasionally add broken up bits of kitten kibble to get him accustomed to the different flavors and textures. He's currently living in our bedroom, where he has a crate with a very soft bed, towel, and an electric bed-warmer that keeps the bed to about 103*F. He also has a wide assortment of toys to play with or snuggle with. We've also been able to easily trim his nails with a regular nail clipper after ensuring he was drowsy. He was 14.7 ounces when we got him on the 8th, 16.4 ounces on the 11th, 18.3 ounces on the 15th, and 19.6 ounces on the 18th.
I have some concerns for the future, though. He has had all of 5 minutes of interaction with another cat (not our own) since we got him. Emotionally, he seems to have adjusted well to leaving his mother. I've read, though, that it's important not to separate a mother and kitten until between 8 and 12 weeks old. Typically, that seems be in cases of domesticated cats instead of feral, so I'm under the impression that we adopted this kitten at the right time, but I'm concerned about how he's supposed to learn all of the things that kittens learn from their mother and their littermates between 4 and 12 weeks of age. For example:
This is my first kitten, so I'm a little anxious about ensuring I'm doing all that I need to do to care for it. The kitten has been seen by a vet after I was concerned that it hadn't pooped in 48 hours. It got a clear bill of health from the vet, and has since turned into a pooping machine. It immediately learned how to use the litter box, and we haven't had a single accident outside of it. That's given a room relocation as well. We initially started it on KMR formula via a kitten bottle. It didn't seem to be able to figure out how to feed via bottle despite all of our efforts and researching. We switched then to a gruel of KMR and soft food for kittens, which he is still being fed and we occasionally add broken up bits of kitten kibble to get him accustomed to the different flavors and textures. He's currently living in our bedroom, where he has a crate with a very soft bed, towel, and an electric bed-warmer that keeps the bed to about 103*F. He also has a wide assortment of toys to play with or snuggle with. We've also been able to easily trim his nails with a regular nail clipper after ensuring he was drowsy. He was 14.7 ounces when we got him on the 8th, 16.4 ounces on the 11th, 18.3 ounces on the 15th, and 19.6 ounces on the 18th.
I have some concerns for the future, though. He has had all of 5 minutes of interaction with another cat (not our own) since we got him. Emotionally, he seems to have adjusted well to leaving his mother. I've read, though, that it's important not to separate a mother and kitten until between 8 and 12 weeks old. Typically, that seems be in cases of domesticated cats instead of feral, so I'm under the impression that we adopted this kitten at the right time, but I'm concerned about how he's supposed to learn all of the things that kittens learn from their mother and their littermates between 4 and 12 weeks of age. For example:
- He doesn't understand how to drink water
- He doesn't understand how to eat kitten kibble (is he too young for this?)
- He attempts to slurp up the soft cat food/gruel instead of lapping it up or taking bites
- He doesn't know his own strength with biting and clawing our arms, legs, and face
- I'm also concerned about any attachment or social isolation issues that may come up from not having another kitten to play with
Other concerns I have are
- He makes a tremendous mess of himself whenever he eats. He sticks his paws in the bowl, gets a massive gruel goatee, and gets gruel in the sides of his head. I'm assuming this is usual for kittens this young. Do they naturally grow out of this tendency? Do they naturally learn how to clean themselves and avoid being messy? Or do they learn this from their mother? Is there anything I can do to foster a sense in him of not wanting to get covered in gruel?
- He's kept us up at night several days this week by simply being nocturnal and climbing into bed with us to play or sleep. The nocturnal problem is slowly being addressed by playing with him more, providing him with plenty of toys, and not letting him sleep as much during the day. We're also trying to train him to sleep in a bed next to ours or to sleep at the foot of our bed instead of trying to sleep where he might get crushed at night. Is there anything I can do to encourage him to sleep on the pet bed next to us or at the foot of our bed?
- introduce him to vaccinated, healthy, indoor adults cats that belong to friends of ours in hopes of forming enough of a relationship so that the adult cat can show our kitten how to drink water, eat food properly, eat kibble, and play more gently
- continue feeding the gruel mixture until he's between 8 to 12 weeks old, gradually adding less and less KMR
- get him vaccinated and neutered as soon as the vet clears him for it
- expose him to multiple different people, environments, and pets to ensure that he's comfortable with change
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