Kitten Care

A normal, healthy kitten is lively, playful and has a good appetite. He or she will also sleep for most of the day. To ensure that your kitten grows up to be a healthy and sociable cat a few points should be considered:

1. Keep up with all vaccinations required in their life, starting at 6 to 8 weeks and continue annually.

2. Kittens should be wormed regularly, every 2 weeks until 12 weeks of age, and after this age, given an allwormer regularly. Allwormers come in paste or tablet form.

3. Provide a nutritious, high quality diet of well-balanced food. Feed small amounts of food and often. The younger the kitten, the more often you need to feed it.

4. Ensure fresh, clean water is alway available. Kittens cannot tolerate the sugar in milk and this can cause diarrhoea, if you want to give milk, a low lactose milk specially formulated for cats is available, but not necessary.

5. Get your cat de-sexed. De-sexing your female cat will permanently stop her from having unwanted kittens, and by de-sexing your male cat will stop him from spraying urine around the house to mark his territory and will stop most territorial fights. Not only do they make better pets, they stop the addition of an already overpopulated cat world.

6. Kittens as young as 4 weeks of age, can learn to use a kitty litter tray.

7. Encouraging play behaviour discourage's aggression and is an important part of your kitten's development.

8. Fleas are a particular problem for kittens, as large numbers of fleas can drain enough blood to make your kitten anaemic. Fleas can also transmit tapeworm. There are a number of sprays and shampoos, tablets and injections on the market to help control the problem.

9. Keep your cat indoors at night. This will ensure your cat will have a happier, longer life. There will be less chance of fighting and less chance of your pet being injured or killed by a car. It will also be better for our native wildlife.

10. Put an elasticised collar on your kitten, with a disc bearing your name and phone number in case it becomes lost. Your kitten must also be micro-chipped – keep your address up-to-date by contacting your country's Animal Registry.