Kitten Tips
Your kitten, as a new addition to your family, is going to give you enormous amounts of pleasure – and no small amount of hard work. Particularly if you have opted for a pair!! Many hours of entertainment are contained in kitten-watching, and we have collected some tips here to help you get the best start with your new companion.
Veterinary Advice
Your Cat Clinic staff will have discussed most of these points with you, but feel free to enquire again if you feel you may have missed something – there are many distractions at the Cat Clinic!!
There are now more vaccinations available for your cat – the more we know about cats, the more we can protect them! The traditional vaccines for flu and enteritis are just as important now as ever they were, especially as these diseases can be transmitted via objects (e.g. a fluey cat sneezes on a bush, your pet rubs there a few hours later, and picks up the flu! and feline enteritis travels in the dust on your feet!). However, we can also, these days, protect them against Feline Leukaemia, the virus that attacks cats’ bone marrow and causes fatal cancerous diseases. This virus is only transmitted by close (face to face) contact with an infected cat, but as there are so many more cats around these days, the chances of your cat coming in contact with the virus is much higher, so we recommend vaccination of all kittens, to prevent their getting the disease, especially if they are to become “out and about” cats. Please see later notes for further clarification of this complex problem (better to vaccinate and stop worrying?!).
Chlamydia is a bacterial conjuctivitis, particularly common among purebred and other ‘colony’ cats. It causes puffy eyes in young cats, and can lead to a type of hayfever if it sensitises the eyes. There is now a vaccine available to help prevent Chlamydia taking hold, and it can be used in combination with other vaccines.
Vaccination can start as young as 6 - 8 weeks old. A vaccination program involves three injections 2 - 4 weeks apart for flu and enteritis and chlamydia, and two injections for leukaemia. Your kitten should not go out till 10 days after the second injection. Cats of any age can be vaccinated, and there is a often special need to protect your cat if she has to go unexpectedly into a cattery. If her vaccination has only lapsed, then she will be protected much more quickly than starting a whole course. Prevention is much better than suffering the disease.
Feeding
Feeding your kitten should be a breeze. You should introduce her to a variety of foods while she is young and prepared to experiment, but her diet should be based on a good, complete, kitten food, with other samples tried occasionally. The great advantage of the Premium Kitten foods (such as Hills Science, Iams or Whiskas Professional – which is not the supermarket Whiskas) is that it can be left out so the kitten/s can feed as often as they like, and the food won't go off. Kitten food must be balanced for protein, calcium and vitamins for your kitten to thrive and the premium foods are up to 95% digestible, so the kitten gets the full value of what she eats. Supermarket dry foods are cereal and soy proteinbased, which is harder for cats to digest, and results in higher magnesium in the urine and more alkaline urine, so predisposing to cystitis (bladder problems). In addition, the high levels of salt, colourings and preservatives does other rather unhelpful things to intestines in many cats, which then require veterinary intervention. Do not allow her to tell you what she likes, as cats rapidly become fixated on a particular food, whether or not it is complete or even good for them. Hence the stories of cats going blind from eating dog food, getting brittle bones from eating only meat, and seizing up with arthritis from eating only liver.
We rarely see these problems now, as most kittens are fed sensibly from the start.
Problems with teeth can be reduced by offering uncooked chicken wings or lamb brisket bones, and occasional chunks of meat such as roo or tough beef (up to 10% of the diet can be these sorts of foods).
There is even the specially designed T/D biscuits to make dental health care easier!
Tinned food (and meat in fact) is 80% water – look on the can next time and add it up!– so are really most useful for texture and taste, or as a change. Variety is the key.
If your kitten is training you to open the fridge door too often, remember she probably isn’t hungry (especially if there is still dry food in her bowl), she just wants attention, and a game is better than a titbit! Live, active culture yoghurt is always helpful, especially if they have a minor bowel upset (diarrhoea for more than a day, and vomiting more than once). Kitten food is appropriate till 10 months old, and then a slow (5 - 7 days) switch to Adult cat food is recommended, and still Premium if possible.
Toxoplasmosis
One of the main worries with kittens is toxoplasmosis, which is a microscopic parasite passed in cat faeces.
Routine hygienic handling of the litter tray (Gloves, disinfectant and daily emptying) reduces the risk to negligible levels. The main risks are for pregnant women, particularly those who work in the garden without gloves. Again, please enquire if you feel you are at risk. More people actually come in contact with toxoplasma via uncooked meat or in garden soil than by contact with their cat or kitten. You can reduce your kitten's exposure to Toxoplasma by freezing all meat for a week before feeding it raw, or by cooking thoroughly before presenting it.
Worming
The worming programme that we recommend is to begin worming your kitten as soon as you can, and to continue worming every month until 4 months old. The main worms in kittens are hookworms and roundworms, but as they get older, they should be wormed for tapeworms, and lung worms (especially if they are hunting cats). Heartworm (transmitted by mosquito bites) is now of sufficient importance in cats to warrant consideration. In Sydney, 80% of dogs not on effective heartworm prevention have Heartworms in their hearts. This provides a huge reservoir of infection for cats, as a mosquito which bites an infected dog and then bites a cat will transmit the infection. The symptoms and problems in cats arise from the earlier stages of larval migration through the lungs, causing coughing (and perhaps tipping over into asthma). There are no perfect tests for cat heartworm problems, so prevention is the only way to go. Indoor cats are at as much risk as outdoor cats, unless you have very effective mosquito screens. You can give your cat and kitten preventative treatments monthly.
Neutering/Desexing (spaying or castrating) your pet is the only safe and permanent method of preventing unwanted kittens. It involves a day in hospital, then a quiet couple of days afterwards (if you can!). We recommend spaying females at 4 months old, (as well-fed kittens can be pregnant by 6 months old! ). There is no advantage to her having kittens, and in fact it greatly increases her chances of having breast cancer later in life. The main reason, though, is to prevent the regular production of kittens – she will produce up to three litters a year if well-fed and left to her own devices!! There is no difference for males between being castrated at 6 weeks or 6 months. If you want a ‘beefy boy’ you’ll need to wait till 9 – 12 months old, but if they start to spray, get them done next day!! Both males and females can be neutered at as young as 6 weeks, but this is usually only done for population control by charities and some pedigree breeders. The only risk is in having an anaesthetic so young, but the operation is very successful with no long term problems in either sex, and all the kittens who find homes via the Cat Clinic are done at that age. Some have grown into the biggest cats around – but that is due to their Premium start in life (both food and attention
Leukaemia Vaccination
It is only in recent times that we have had any method of preventing this disease. It is a complex virus (as befits the cat – there are still mysteries for the virus to reveal even after 40 years of intensive study!).
The important points are that the virus can attack any cat, but does require close contact to be infective (it does not infect another cat if the virus has been off the cat for more than an hour), and that it is most effective in attacking young cats, by invading their bone marrow.
Once a cat reaches the age of about three years old, she has an internal immunity (rather like with whooping cough in children), and can more easily throw the virus off on her own. However, the story does not stop there! In all cats that get infected, there is a chance that a small amount of virus may hide away somewhere in the body, completely undetectable, only to surface in later life and cause cancer of the intestinal lymph nodes or kidneys. This seems to be scenario for Australian cats (whereas in the UK and USA, the virus mainly destroys the bone marrow in young cats, and only occasionally hides out and causes the cancerous problems in older cats). But now we have a vaccine to protect your cat, so it is an issue worthy of your consideration
LEUCOGEN is very effective in protecting your cat against any attack of the leukaemia virus. We therefore recommend it for all cats, but especially kittens as they are the most vulnerable. They will then not have any virus hide away, nor have the virus destroy the bone marrow.
Vaccination is also for older cats, especially those of unknown history, or who may have been in contact with the virus, prior to our having any vaccines available (this is almost any cat). This vaccine protects your pet from being overwhelmed by the virus, should they encounter it postvaccination.
More importantly, it protects against the resurfacing of the virus in later life (via producing FOCMA, for those who have researched this fascinating topic), and so protects against the cancer which the virus causes after a long time delay. No test will pick up the virus as it lays dormant, and in fact, even once the virus starts showing as a cancer, the test for FeLV will remain negative in most cases. There is no cure, so prevention is really an insurance especially applicable for cats younger than eight years old who mayhave been “adventure cats” in their youth. The more we study the Leukaemia virus and the cat, the more we learn, and the story will likely be modified as time goes on. As changes occur, we will modify our programmes to give your pet the best protection possible.
Feline Aids
This is a virus which has stolen the limelight in recent years. Cats have had it as part of their environment for hundreds of years or so, and seem less affected by it than we are on their behalf. IT HAS ABSOLUTELY NO EFFECT ON HUMANS, EVEN ILL AND IMMUNOSUPPRESSED ONES – it is just something else cats keep to themselves. Sadly, we can neither help nor hinder the progress of the virus in the cat, but it does seem that most cats can contain the virus for some years before it makes them very ill. About 10% of Sydney cats are infected, and the frequency of their fights with other cats is a fair indicator of their likelihood of getting the virus. It is only transmitted by bites (but one tooth covered with virus-infected saliva is enough to infect a new cat, and as in human AIDS, once is forever). As most Cat fights happen at night this is another good reason for keeping your cat indoors after dark.
Identification
Mostly, cats know where they are. However, sometimes, their owners are not so sure of their location. If your kitten will tolerate a collar and disc, that is of assistance when your pet makes an unauthorised sortie further from home. However, the microchip is a permanent form of identification. It is a silicon chip put under the skin. All vets and councils and welfare agencies have the scanners to check all stray animals. These pets are then rapidly returned to their owners, as their number is held on file at a central registry and linked to their owner's address. NSW requires all cats to be registered and identified, and while a collar and disc will do, if that is lost and there is no microchip, then your pet will be permanently lost to you. Registration will also give the cat a legal status so more can be done to protect them from irresponsible or neglectful owners, because the owners can be tracked via the database and made to account for their actions.
It becomes much harder to ‘just leave the cat behind’. However, the compulsory Council registration is designed to track down un-desexed pets or trace neglectful owners rather than reunite the cat with their owners in an emergency. The private database (run by the AAR) has been successfully reuniting owners and pets for many years, is available all day, every day, to every vet. Speak to us about which database is best for your cat.
House Trainig
This is the delightful aspect of kittens, as mum has usually done all the work for you by the time your kitten is 3 – 4 weeks old!! However, to keep your pet comfortable in her toilette requirements, please take the following “rules of etiquette” into account – your cat will be happier with a litter tray in a quiet secluded place, away from where she eats (so a kitchen location is not ideal). She will also not appreciate sudden changes in the type of litter (some cats will only use one kind of litter, but a smattering of garden soil in the tray reminds them where to go). Be aware that the clay types of litter often have silicon in them, which produces coughing and asthma problems in some cats and people, and is the cause of the fatal disease “silicosis”. We have available a biodegradable, flushable litter specially bagged for us (once used, it is also perfect for composting) and several other varieties.
It is important to make your litter type selection early as some cats will refuse to use any new kinds once they've established their preference, and will ignore new litter types for years rather than use the one they don't like. And please, clean out the messy bits frequently (if not the whole litter content) – cats do not like to go where they've been before! Finally, rinse well after disinfecting (use bleach diluted 1:10 for preference), as cats' sense of smell is much stronger than ours, and the smell of some deodorants almost seems to hurt their noses… The best disinfectant is actually a couple of hours airing with the inside of the tray exposed to the sun. Loss of house-training is a very major issue for cat owners, and there are a few things to try if your pet stops using the litter tray. Try getting a second tray if your cat is very fussy about cleanliness, so they have a second choice if you are away a bit longer than usual. Or go back to the other kind of litter if you just changed types suddenly. Any changes in a cat’s environment may cause stress, and the bladder seems to be the’ stress organ’ for cats (we humans get headaches..!), so try to figure out what is new in the household. Do not move the litter tray suddenly… unless you have a very tolerant cat! Sometimes it is easier to put a tray where the cat is going to the toilette, rather than cause an emotional problem with finding a more suitable place! Most cats want privacy for their toilette, and covered trays often solve the problem.
If there is any blood in the urine or faeces, your cat needs urgent veterinary attention, so please phone if you are concerned.