Why do people give kittens up too soon?

ashley45

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Why can you get kittens from 6 weeks? I'm planning on getting a kitten in the next 3 weeks or so, and I've read here and heard from friends that getting one before 10-12 weeks has negative effects. I don't want to take any chances, so I plan on getting one at least that old.

But my question is, if there are negative effects from getting them too soon, why can you find lots of kittens from 6 weeks up? Some of them that I've found are coming from people who know a lot about cats and have raised multiple litters. The Purina website says to get kittens no later than 8 weeks or they're harder to train. Even some pet shops and shelters around here are advertising kittens younger than 10 weeks and saying that they're ready to go home. Why do they do this?
 

troublesome2

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I guess its each to their own really, maybe because people want to buy kittens when their small and are easier to sell?
 

epona

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I think that when you are seeing kittens offered from too young an age it is by people who really don't know enough about it - for example if they didn't know enough to have their cat spayed (no offense to anyone with kittens due, accidents do of course happen even with the best of intentions!) then I wouldn't expect them to know how long the kittens should stay with mum.
 

goldenkitty45

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Between 6-10 weeks old, ALL kittens are very cute and that's what the people/pet shop are counting on to find homes. Ideally its the WORSE time to get them regarding social/mental and physical health.

Kittens will nurse up to 3 months old (I let my queens decide when to stop). From 6-10 weeks old kittens learn social skills regarding siblings, adult cats, other animals in the house. When you deprive them by letting them go early, you may have social and mental problems and some physical ones.

Pet shops get their "stock" from puppy/kitten mills or backyard breeders who don't care where the kittens wind up. And the pet shops don't want to keep the kittens too long or the social/behaviorial problems will be worse.

That is why they claim "harder to handle" - because they are not socially able to handle something other then a little cage.

Case in point. My husband lived on a farm - they used to give away the kittens by 8 weeks old. The last 2 batches of kittens born before everyone had been neutered/spayed were kept till 3 months old and socialized in the house and handled a lot more. My husband remarked how much better these kittens were when going to the new homes.

CARING people keep the kittens and help them become good companions; the rest simply do not care what happens.
 

urbantigers

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Sometimes it's because people aren't very knowledgeable about cats and don't realise how much kittens learn from mum and siblings as they grow up. They think that as soon as the kittens are eating cat food they are ready to go to their new homes. In other cases people just don't want to have to pay to feed them for any longer than necessary, and sometimes it's like Goldenkitty says - kittens are very cute at about 6 weeks and some just want to appeal to prospective owners who think kitten = 6 weeks and that a 13 week old kitten is too old


Sometimes rescues have legitimate reasons for rehoming a bit earlier than ideal since they need to free up space for other cats and in some intstances the kittens may have been orphaned and hand reared. Or they may consider that the kittens are going to be better socialised in a new home than in a pen at a shelter.
 

jen

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everyone else pretty much answered the same as I was going to say, but I just wanted to add that many shelters just want to get those kittens out of there. In shelters, where there is a ton of stress and illness already, that is the IDEAL place for these animals to get sick and die. So the plan is as soon as they hit 8 weeks, get them out of there and adopted. The mother isn't going to do a ton with them when they are all stuck, overcrowded in a tiny steel cage anyways.
 

kittiesx2

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I am probably going to get some flak for this but I adopted my kitten Tucker from a BYB

In my defense I was uneducated at the time and just thought that I'd stumbled onto one heck of a deal

I wanted a specific breed,Ragdoll, and after searching for a rescue/retired cat for a long time I found a listing on Craigslist for Raggie kittens,e-mailed the lady and bought my baby boy. Only 200 dollars, what a deal...I thought.
Tucker was supposed to come home at 10 weeks then she wanted me to pick him up at 8 weeks so I grudgingly agreed. Picked him up and found out he was only 7 weeks

Supposedly he was on solid food but wouldn't eat for me and lost a lot of weight. I cried alot, it was an awful experience

I resorted to force feeding him KMR ... Eventually I discovered that he loves fancy feast and was able to put his weight back on and his growth returned to normal.
He hadn't been socialized well and it's taken months to gain his trust. He's really loving now.

Also because of early seperation he tends to bite harder than my other cat, he didn't have time to learn manners from his Mom. He's finally gotten to the point where he will start to bite, I tell him NO and he stop's...usually.
I wouldn't give him up for anything but I also learned a great lesson...kittens need time to mature with their Mom's and that if something seems to good to be true, it probably is
 

troublesome2

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I got lily at 7 weeks and alfie has only just turned 6 weeks the day i picked him up but her was a very adventrous kitten ( god knows why i chose the hyper one of the bunch!) out of his big litter so we had no problems with him settling in or any thing
 
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ashley45

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Wow, that seems so young. They didn't have any problems training, or behavioral problems?
 

troublesome2

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^^ depends what you mean by behavior problems
i've not had litter training problems with either, alfie claws the wall hence why i bought him the huge cat tree
worked so far fingers crossed!
 

bab-ush-niik

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Princess was 8 weeks when we got her. She came from a friend who's parents let their cat have "one litter". They didn't know any better. I was 8, and I knew she was too young. But they had already given away two of her siblings, and they wanted to get rid of the rest.

She always had some weird neurotic issues. Patches mothered her for a couple weeks, which I think helped. Princess had only been barely weaned, so she was still wanting to suckle. Patches allowed this for a little while, then "weaned" Princess herself.

She was never properly socialized with other cats though. She had "little cat" issues for the rest of her life and was quite mean to most other cats (except Patches, who would whack her a good one if she dared to try). I think she needed more time with her mother and with her siblings.
 

troublesome2

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^^ ^just reading that made me think- alfie used to suckle on tassels of my pillow and some tassels on my top for a little while maybe thats why he was doing it
 

sobriquet

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There are a lot of reasons that kittens should not go so young. Socialisation and health as well as bite inhibition.

Yes backyard breeders do the wrong thing, and yes that is where pet shop kittens come from as well as the accidental backyard breeders who has just one litter.

Backyard breeders who are in it for the money want the kittens gone, the money in their pocket and their cat calling again, ready to be mated again. They don't care about you or your kitten. They want the money, so quick get rid of the kittens, no worry about vaccinating or desexing and they really don't care if the kitten will be a good pet, why would they, they have their money.

My registering council makes it quite clear that kittens are not to go until they are at least 10 weeks old. Personally I keep them until they are 12 weeks as this means they are a good weight for the early desexing. No kitten leaves my property undesexed. But then I breed for the love of cats not the abuse of cats.

Think long and hard before you support a backyard breeder.
 

urbantigers

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Mosi was 14 weeks before I brought him home and he's beautifully socialised and confident. Even the vet commented on how sociable he was
The registering bodies for pedigree cats over here recommends that kittens don't go to their new homes until 13 weeks of age. That's so that they can be properly socialised, litter trained etc by the time they go to their new homes but also so that they can have their vaccinations done before they go (normally done at 9 and 12 weeks).

Jaffa was 8 weeks when I got him and his brother. I think he was ok at that age but he came from a shelter where he was in a pen with his 2 brothers all day so he was probably better off at home with me. He is very timid though and I think he missed out a lot with early socialisation. 8 weeks is as young as I think is acceptable for kittens to go to a new home unless there are exceptional circumstances, eg hand reared and no siblings (or siblings going to new home together).
 

mimosa

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I think most people who have a litter of kittens give them away too early because they don't know any better, because the new owners don't know any better and demand to get their cute little kitten as soon as possible (which is definitely not in their kittens best interest), and some people just know they have bred a litter of kittens even though there are so many cats without a home, and they are worried they won't be able to "get rid of" the kittens once they are not as cute as they are at 6 weeks anymore. And when kittens are really small they just lie in the nesting box, drinking free mothers milk and having their little butts cleaned by mom, but when they get a little older they start eating and using the litter box (food and litter cost money), they have accidents outside the litter box, will maybe damage some furniture when they start moving around and haven't learned to use the scratching post, around that time some people suddenly decide it's time for the kittens to go to their new house


Ernesto and Mimosa are farmcats if you would believe it, a friend of my mom who owns a farm gave them to us. When we went to pick them up they were about 7-9 weeks (they couldn't be more specific then; "ehrm.... we think they were born when the cows were still inside") because we were first time cat-owners who didn't know any better and the farmer had scared us with his stories about the dangers to kittens on his farm (one of their siblings subsequently drowned and another was run over). They did develop some behavioral issues. Especially Mimosa, she can be very insecure and because Ernesto knows that he picks on her a lot. We are working with a feline behaviour therapist on this, it's her opinion as well that these problems were caused by seperating them from their mom and siblings too early. I think a lot of people accept feline problem behaviour as "normal" by the way, because most people are used to the behaviour of cats that have left their mom too early.

Flynn and dEUS came to us at 3 and 4 months, and they followed us around, crawled on our laps and slept in our bed since the first moment they got here. They are not "harder to train" then other cats, if anything they seem to be more wellbehaved with both humans and other cats. Ernesto and Mimosa both love them even though they can hardly stand eachother.
 

tekgrl

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It really depends on the kitten and the situation, I suspect. I got my baby girl at 6 wks old and because I already had a 4mo old kitten at home that was trained, he took over training her and she's turned out great now! She is going on 4 mos old.

As far as health concerns, I wouldn't know much about that but I suspect there is a reason they suggest allowing the mother to nurse for a certain amount of time. But when they are being sold or adopted out, they are already seperated from mum and would be better off in the care of an individual that researches and tries to meet their needs, IMHO.
 

meistersar

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It takes a LOT of work to raise one of those kittens that was taken too young from their mother and litter mates.

My 2 oldest cats (now 3 years old) were only 5 weeks old when the shelter here picked them up (they picked up mother too). They seperated all the kittens from Mama immediately, even though the kittens were not litter trained, could not eat solid food, were not even weaned...

Well, it was a rough first few weeks, let me tell you. I had to feed them special formula and use a blender to mix it with kitten chow so it was a soft mush they could eat easily, litter train them, teach them to wash themselves using a warm, wet cloth after they were done eating, they had to sleep by me because they did not produce enough body heat on their own, the list goes on and on. The female weighed 10 ounces and the male weighed 12 when we got them. They were very, very small. The shelter gave them wormer and they were too young for it, the female especially got very sick from it and I wasn't sure she would live. Luckily, she did.

They turned out very well. They are very gentle cats who do not bite or even use their claws while playing, are normal sized, and do all the normal cat things, but it could have easily gone the other way and they could have ended up with all sorts of social and health problems. The only odd thing is the male kitty still tries to suckle on my shirt sleeves now and then because he was taken away from his cat-mom much too early.

I know have an 8 week old kitten , so while he is a few weeks older and a bit more robust and able to eat dry food well, he's still very young and needs Mama, so I have to be substitute mama for him now too.
 

Asteria

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Molly and Polly were from the same litter but I got Molly at 6 weeks and Polly at 7 weeks. Neither of them have any behavioral problems. They are balanced and socialized and good with people and other animals.
BUT 6 or 7 weeks is not ideal to me. A lot of people just don't understand that the time the kittens (or puppies for that matter) are with the mother is not just about weaning but about development and learning.
 

chromodactyl

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apart from everything else written here which is true-For a 4 or 6 week ol or any too young age,imagine how traumatic to suddenly be snatched from yr litter mate and warm mum to a strange place,new people and smells.The world is new as it is,that would be stressful.Apaprt from the fact you have just been weened -which in itself is said to be highly stressful for baby animals.
 

gert452000

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I have 3 cats. The oldest, she will be 16 in August,, was only 4 weeks old when i got her. The people assured me she was 8 weeks old. Ididn't know any better and brought her home. The vet is the one who told me. She had some unusual problems to start with. Mommy had not taught her about the potty box - so I did. Mommy hadn't taught her about butt cleaning - so I did. It was quite an experience. She grew into a normal loving kitty. My boy who is 8 now was alos brought home at 4 weeks. Again, I was told he was the proper age. Different owner this time. We wondered about him but his litter mates were all of a good size. The vet told me this time too. He is now an 18 pound pile of fur. His only problems were wanting to nurse all the time. He had a favorite blanket but would whatever was handy. Even now occasionally he willstill nurse.
 
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