Your new kitten is still just a baby and needs to be treated as such.   He/she needs to be introduced to the household gradually, being allowed to explore at his/her own pace and being given space and time to rest as needed.   Your kitten needs love, affection and reassurance, but should not be mobbed.   It may take your kitten a few days to settle down and feel at home away from Mum.   If there are any problems please contact me.   I am always available to advise a new kitten owner.

 

• Diet
• Toileting
• The great outdoors

 

Diet

It is best to keep your kitten on a familiar diet and introduce new foods gradually. A diet sheet will come with your new kitten. He/she has been raised on a mix of commercial and fresh food. How you wish to arrange meals is up to you.

Where there are no big cats around to steal the kitten's food a commercial dry kitten food (e.g. Hills, Proplan, Eukanuba) can be left available all day. Otherwise feed 3 - 4 meals a day. A good quality tinned kitten food is generally well tollerated (Hills or Iams). Mince or fresh meat alone is does not provide all the vitamins and minerals that a kitten/cat needs but is okay to feed several times a week in conjunction with other food, and most Abys love it.

Your kitten may also like a little fresh fish occassionally or some cooked chicken but it should not be a major part of their diet. Between 16 and 24 weeks they should have 3 meals per day and sometime after 24 weeks they can drop down to 2 meals per day. A sign your kitten is ready to be fed less frequently is he/she not being interested in one of their regularly scheduled meals, e.g. regularly doesn't eat much supper, or shows no interest in having lunch on a regular basis. Generally you can be guided by their appetite and weight gain. Your kitten should look healthy, slim and fit. Continue to feed kitten food until your kitten is between 6 to 9 months old; after 6 to 9 months they can change to cat food.  Use a clean feeding dish for each meal and don't leave large amounts of moist food out for long periods of time as flies may lay their eggs in it (Yuck!).

Make sure you kitten has a dish fresh of water available at all times and wash the dish daily.

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Toileting

At twelve weeks your kitten is trained to use a litter tray.   Any mistakes will be due to confusion in a new environment.   Place your litter tray somewhere quiet but easily accessible, eg: the laundry or perhaps a toilet or bathroom.   Show the kitten where the tray is soon after its arrival and place it on the tray at intervals until you are sure your kitten has worked out where the tray and what it is for.   If there are any accidents (and these should be few) place the kitten on the litter tray.   Showing the kitten how to dig a hole in the litter with its paw should encourage it to use the tray next time.   The other most common reason for a toilet accident is that the litter tray hasn't been changed often enough (Like us, cats hate to uses dirty toilets) or that the kitten hasn't been able to get to the box eg: someone shut the door.  Your kitten is used to both a wood/grain pellet type litter and to standard clay based Cat Litter.   We suggest you use either of these to start with.   If you change to another type of litter it is a good idea to do so by gradually mixing the new litter in with the old until eventually you have made a complete change over.  A sudden change in litter type can upset a kitten and disrupt their toilet training.   Remove any bowel motions daily and completely change the litter weekly, or when it becomes smelly.   Wash the litter tray when you change the litter.

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The Great Outdoors

Please keep your kitten inside for the first week.   That way your kitten will be used to its new family before you let it outside and will be happy to come when you call it.   Twelve-week-old kittens are extremely vulnerable in the Great Outdoors.   Danger lurks - dogs, cars, bigger cats, getting lost etc.   To begin with, only let your kitten out when you are with it.   Leave the door open or have a cat flap so your kitten has an escape route inside if need be.   As your kitten gets older and learns to find its way around it may be left out more on its own. Cars cause the most deaths in a kitten/cats first two years.   Young cats have little road sense.   If you live in a busy street you might like to keep your kitten as an inside pet.   If your kitten has never run free outdoors they won't miss it.   Cats are perfectly happy as inside pets so long as you provide them with enough toys and attention.   If you away from home for long periods you might consider having two kittens for company. The riskiest time for accidents and cat fights is night-time.   Please keep your kitten/cat inside at night.   Simply call them in for tea and then shut the doors and windows.

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