New Kitten Any Advice Welcome Please

purplepardalis

Pet shops can sell kittens if they are licensed to do so. Hope yours settles in quickly. It is better if you get 2 at a time. Mine are now 6 months old and just lovely. We didn't do anything special for them, and let them integrate into the household. They have been hard work though and race around like elephants!

purplepardalis

This is them with their big brother Scribble

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McKneff

Good for you for taking it further.
Hopefully the other kittens will be sorted (and the shop keeper)
Let us know how you get on.

Ilona

I am appalled that a pet shop owner would hand over a kitten to whoever happens to be passing the shop. Two friends and I have a cat rescue in our village. We have just rehomed four kittens to three loving homes. We checked out these people before we handed them over.

This trade in animals disgusts me.
Ilona

gettingready

Awwww - we want a photo of the kitten, NOW

From a pet shop, kept together with kitties from different parents/litters - get that baby chacked by the vet asap as the environment you got her/him from is an invite to cross infection.

Do not believe they were vaccinated, 100% they were not so get yours done as soon as it is well enough (normal poo an indication)

Age - my 4 were possibly even under 8 weeks when I got them BUT:

1) They were offered for sale anyway so if not me, someone else would have got them anyway
2) I had their surrogate mum Zara (my GS) waiting to mother them when they arrived

They were so tiney, each one of them less than a pound in weight with Phoebe the black and white one sompletely tineyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy



Yes, kittens should stay with their mum till they are a bit older but if this does not happen - at least it is good if they end up with humans who REALLY care about them...


Let us see your little baby then, photo plsssssssssssssssssss

missblonde

My kitten (now a HUGE monster of a cat) was around 6 weeks old when I got him, or so I was told. He was covered in flea dirt, underweight and had developed a habit for eating cat litter. I didn't get him from a pet shop, but I did report the place to the RSPCA. I call him a rescue kitten as I did rescue him really! He was free from a house with more cats than I could count and they claimed they couldn't afford to neuter them so they kept getting pregnant. I was offered a kitten from the mothers next litter when he was 4 months old.... some people don't deserve to keep animals.

Please get Snowball checked out by a vet as soon as you can just to be safe. My vets were great with Milo and gave me loads of advice for caring for a very small kitten, such as weaning and litter training. He's huge now, so there clearly wasn't any long term effects. He looks like a proper thug but is such a scaredy cat as he never learnt "cat" behaviour and thinks he's human. He still (at 4 1/2) has a habit of trying to sleep on my chest and sucking on my hair or ear lobes, which given the size of him it quite an achievement!

Good luck!

Missus_Aka

Just thought i would update everyone, snowball seems very happy she has enjoyed sleeping on my stomach a lot, i think she likes the warmth and the feeling of me breathing she was purring so loudly and she has been rubbing her nose onto mine its very sweet. Today she has been a lot more playful, chasing her tail, climbing up my curtains and generally just having a nosey around the house, i keep losing her though she gets into the tinniest of places its like looking for a needle in a haystack. Toilet is getting more solid now and she seems a lot more content as is eating more now (she kept trying to steal one of my chicken sausages)

She doesnt seem to like water and would only drink a tiny bit, but i added a little bit of kitten milk and she lapped it up a lot more, so i dont think she will be dehydrated

The rspca did phone me after to get a few more details so hopefully they are taking it seriously....and i am also surprised that they just let me pick up a cat with no id, no proof of address, thought they did ask me to put my name and address in their diary (but to be honest i could have just lied and they wouldnt have known the difference) AND i found this very surprising as im 23 but get told constantly that i look like im under 16, need to show id to buy nail clippers but i can go into a pet shop and not show id and buy a living animal. STRANGE.

She is now comfortabling sitting on my shoulder and purring and rubbing my nose with hers again, she actually just bit my lip gently...she so funny but i think her personality is showing more today now she is used to here.

As for buying another one of her brothers/sisters it is something i will have to speak to dh about as well as the added cost but i dont want her to be lonely, it will be decided in the next week or so anyway

Thankyou everyone for your concerns/advice it is well appreciated, will post again tomorrow with a pic hopefully

rita-rabbit

two is better than one - esp as this one is so young. Less people/indoors living can lead to separation anxiety/wreckage when you are not at home to keep cat company......

My cat owning experience indicates that unless you have a whole family to play with kitty it's a good idea to have 2 - yes it costs more but pets happier.

lap cats only work for elderly as they are always at home actually keeping cat company!

rita-rabbit

oh & get all the free samples you can virtually cat food manufacturers have kitten clubs as they know the average cat lives about 15 years. For now I wouldn't worry about meat % - when she/he older, about 6 months you can look into that. For now take advantage of the freebies on offer!

jungle_jane

I had exactly this when I got my oldest cat 19 years ago. He also picked up a bad tummy from a sick kitty in the litter and i rushed mine off to the vet the first day i had him. They told me the same - give him boiled chicken and water.

He was sick, scared and listless for about 3 days and then he perked up and hasn't looked back. He's a great big whopper of a cat and I still have him.

It would be great if you could see him drink some water - kitties with runny tummies can dehydrate...they often like stale water too so if he doesn't want your nice fresh water he may like some old water, for example from a watering can? My cats drinks the green, slimy water from the bucket outside the house and won't touch the fresh stuff from the tap....