WTF do I do with a kitten?

H just rang and said he was on his way home and he had a passenger. It turns out that the passenger is a kitten.
Apparently it's mother died and it spent the night crying outside his window so he went and got it and it was covered in feaces and fleas so he's washed the **** off and he's bringing it home :o Because he couldn't take it to the RSPCA because they would kill it :doh:

I've never, ever had a small kitten before. I've always bought from breeders who let them go at 3 months and they are vaccinated, wormed, and never covered in **** and fleas.
And I already have a cat and this is where it gets complicated -Rosie, the Queen of Sheba has FIV. So if she bites the kitten the kitten will get sick but if the kitten makes her sick she will get extra sick :wall:

And I'm busy this afternoon.

I've left a cat box by the door and told H to dump his dirty kitten in there and I'll deal with it but I have no idea how to deal with it. What does a kitten the size of your fist eat? What flea stuff can I use on it?
How do I keep ****ty kitty and Queen Rosie apart? Whilst still treating both humanely.

Awww! ****ty kitty haha. Umm, I don't quite know. Could you or H call a breeder and ask them? Perhaps there is some sort of special milk you could give it? How sweet.

****ty cat
****ty cat
What are they feeding you?
****ty cat
****ty cat
It's not your fault!

Couldn't help but put in a friends reference!

Have to call it Merde perhaps?

Can the RSPCA or a local cat shelter not give advice over the phone? They might be able to help with the hygiene etc, and if you can't keep kitty they can help you find it a temporary home. I do know that cats should be seperated for a small while when a newbie enters the home, as it is Queen of Sheba's palace afterall :)

Good luck, I hope kitty is ok xx

PS: I am not a cat person, and always smile when I see the car stickers that say 'A good cat is a flat cat'. Is that taboo? ;) I don't really like flat cats though :)

Get the kitten to the vets as soon as possible to get it checked over, they can advise on food depending on how old they think it is, and may have a home for it. The ranger will also take it if you ask.. ( I didn't think RSPCA destroyed cats any more.. )def not kittens as they are so easy to rehome, its old cats that are the issue.
If you keep it, keep it shut in one room with its own litter tray ect, until it cans be vaxed ect and introduced gently to your other cat.

Lol sounds like something DF would do - why can't they just leave things as they are without letting emotions get involved? lol

I would call the RSPCA or a local vet and ask them about food and fleas - I hope it's something easy and not too complicated!!

Good luck!!

I hand raised a 2wk old feral kitten for a while. If it is really young you may have to keep it warm at night still. I used a hot water bottle under an old towel inside an esky - it kept it so nice and warm in there - Chewy loved it! It wont be eating any food yet either and will need to be syringe fed with milk. I used a 20ml syringe and got a special cat teat from the vet for $2. I used the milk powder we use for the poddy lambs, and that worked fine. When it was 5wks old I brought the tetra pak kitten milk. One thing that you're going to hate is that really young kittens can't poo or wee on their own yet so depending on the age of your kitten you may need to help it along. To do this (and I wish I never knew how to do this iether LOL) is to rub a wet cloth or paper towel around it's anus to mimic the cleaning of the mother cat, becuase the mother licking their anus stimilates them to urinate/defecate. It's not pretty, but necessary otherwise they can run into all sorts of trouble. But if the kitten is old enough to do that on it's own then you dont need to do it and can start with house training right away. They can't be wormed till they are a fair bit older as well unfortunately. But despite the PITA that hand rearing was, Chewy is a gorgeous cat now - still feral as anything, but we rehomed her with Mum and she loves it with them.

You can feed it a low lactose milk like Divetalact which you can get from any vets supplier alternatively I think Cooinda Downs Pastoral supply a Womabroo formula specially designed for kittens. They wouldnt start in solid foods until at least 3 weeks but maybe closer to 4 (need to check that). It will probably require bottle feeding as it wont know how to lap just yet (depending on age). You would also need to 'toilet' the kitten after each feed, using a warm moist tissue. A nice warm bed with a well covered heat pad at one end so it can escape from the heat when necessary.

as for fleas, might want to check with a vet due to the kitten being so young (again depending on its age) but frontline spray is relativey safe BUT thats an age depended thing.

HTH :)

Do you have a dog? We found a kitten that was only about 3-4 weeks old and she couldn't clean herself so I held her out to the dogs a couple of times a day and they cleaned all the crap off her (*gag* - but better than me doing it!).

You can buy kitten milk at the shop. If it is walking it is probably alright to go straight onto a fortified milk. For food - weet-bix in milk, then cat biscuits in milk and raw mince or canned kitten food.

They are such tough little things! It definately needs a trip to the vet but in the mean time.... just a little water and some cooked well mushed chicken..... Make sure not to give it any milk, especially cows, it is torture to their tummys that young. The local rescue centre or vet may be able to sell you "Wombaroo" a milk replacer, plus bottle and teat..... if the kitten is under 7-8 weeks it would probably be a good idea to give it bottles for a while to try and make up for the poor babies rough start in life, if it was that dirty it will probably be riddled with worms etc as well, so it will need the extra nutrition :-)

Im with you on not knowing past that, both of my boys are purebred, and had the same start to life as your 13 weekers lol, but having my stud boy I have been exposed to kittens that need feeding as the mother cant/wont feed, they seem to do really well once they get the hang of it.

In regards to the FIV thing, definately keep your precious girl seperate, but considering how this kitty came to you, I wouldnt be surprised if its mother was feral/abandoned..... there is a good chance it has already been exposed to these nasties :cry:

I hope it all goes well and little ****ty kitty will be all better soon :D

What you do with the kitten all depends on two things.
1. What are your long term plans for the kitten?
2. How old is the kitten?

If you don't plan on actually keeping the kitten, then the best thing to do is take it to a Vet or Shelter so that they can care for it and find it a foster home if it is still too young to be rehomed.

If you plan on keeping it, then the best thing to do is take it straight to a Vet and find out it's age. There's been lots of advice in here on what to feed it, but that is all dependent on how old the kitten is. If it's really young it'll need syringe feeding with a milk supplement (like divetelact that someone mentioned), if it's a bit older itll be able to drink the divetelact by itself from a bowl, and if it's a bit older than that then the best "first food" for a kitten is a good quality (bought from a Vet) kitten dry kibble that has been softened with water (steer clear of things like weetbix and milk, they will cause tummy upsets and don't have the nutrients a kitten requires). Based on the kittens age the Vet will be able to tell you if you need to help the kitten urinate and defecate. This sounds really gross, but it's not too bad. You just just a cotton ball and wet it with warm water, then wipe it across the kitten genitals and that stimulates it in the same way as a mother cat licking it.

The Vet will also advise you about worming and flea treatment. Spot on treatments for fleas are safe from about 8-9 weeks of age, but there is a Frontline spray that can be used from 2 days of age to get rid of fleas. Don't use a supermarket brand! They use old technology and there are some that have a chemical in them that can cause convulsions and paralysis (and death).

If the kitten is from a feral cat there is a possibility that it may already have FIV, but as it may not you'll have to keep it separated from your other cat. There is an FIV vaccine that is extremely effective. You can have the kitten tested for FIV at a later date (after it's been quarantined and you know it hasn't contracted it during that period) and if it's comes back negative then you can get the series of FIV vaccines. A study where the FIV virus was injected into cats in a high dose showed the vaccine to be at least 70ish% effective, but a much more "life based" study where vaccinated cats were placed in enclosures with FIV positive cats and allowed to interact normally showed the vaccine to be much closer to 100% effective.

If the kitten is really young it shouldn't be too hard to keep the cats apart as the little one just needs to stay in a heated box or something similar. If it's older and moving around, a great place to keep it (although it sounds strange) is in the bottom of a shower. You can make it up into a lovely cat enclosure temporarily. Of course, that only works if you have a spare shower that you can convert for a period of time, lol. Otherwise, your Vet may hire enclosures that you could put somewhere away from your other cat. The clinic I used to work at had a number of large enclosures to hire as they were often used for keeping cats or dogs confined after surgery which required that animal keep movement to a minimum.

I guess whatever you decide for the kitten, my advice is that a trip to the Vet asap is required either way. Good luck!!!

:

---

****ty cat
****ty cat
What are they feeding you?
****ty cat
****ty cat
It's not your fault!

Couldn't help but put in a friends reference!

Have to call it Merde perhaps?

---

:ROFL:

Is there a local vet that has an adoption program?

The RSPCA won't put the kitten down unless it is ill beyond survivability or it is not coping...

:

---

Do you have a dog? We found a kitten that was only about 3-4 weeks old and she couldn't clean herself so I held her out to the dogs a couple of times a day and they cleaned all the crap off her (*gag* - but better than me doing it!).

You can buy kitten milk at the shop. If it is walking it is probably alright to go straight onto a fortified milk. For food - weet-bix in milk, then cat biscuits in milk and raw mince or canned kitten food.

---

:lol: i thought you were going to say feed it to the dog :redface:

I think the vet is the best idea, they will tell you all you need to know including places that will take and foster them for rehoming.

Sent from my HTC Desire using Tapatalk

We took it to the vet at the RSPCA. She said that if I left it it would be put down because it has flu and is only 4 weeks old. So I bought him back home. He's on antibiotics and he has some high quality food. She wormed him and gave him a flea treatment and warned me he mightn't make it so we've called him Captain and he's quarantined from Rosie.
Oh, and he might have ringworm too :doh: so the boys can't touch him until we see if his bare patch grows or shrinks.

All that aside he's actually quite lively and playful and cute so if we get him through the next few weeks he'll be a great candidate for adoption.

You've done a wonderful job with him already :) He's certainly a lucky kitten to find someone that cares enough to take care of him. Thank goodness he's old enough to eat for himself, because I don't envy anyone that has to get up every two hours to feed a kitten. Lol, says me who's babies always wake at least two hourly to feed during the night until they are close to a year of age, hahaha. It's easier to do for a baby though, rather than a kitten ;)

Captain is looking much perkier today but he hasn't poed yet.
At about 4 weeks he should be able to poo without having his bum rubbed shouldn't he. He had poo on his bum when H found him so presumably he's pooed solo before.
He his own little room in the shower recess in the en-suite and he's sent off into exile in there whenever Rosie wants to hang out.

If anyone wants a cat he'll be looking for a new home once he's grown up a bit and had some vax etc.

He should be getting the hang of it but as mum would do it anyway, perhaps you could toilet him once and get him understanding the concept? Being so depleted, whats going in might not need to come back out ie he is using most of the nutrition to repair. At least that is what I have been taught in relation to the animals I raise (different species though!) Well done! You are doing a great job!

Sorry, looks like I was misguided with the weetbix and milk advice. We always fed it to our kittens, but then I am a child of the 80's when it was fine and dandy to add weetbix to a 6 week old baby's bottle :)

It's not even a week yet and he looks like a new kitten.
His eyes are clear, he has no snot. The bald patch near his mouth is tsill there but it's not crusty anymore.
He eats about a 3rd of his bodyweight everyday and he's become very playful in a rather psycho way.
He even uses his litter box if he's close enough when the urge hits.

Fingers crossed he keeps on keeping on.

In a few days I might introduce him to my cat and see if they get on because I think he needs some guidance from an older cat.

That's great Captain is doing so well. I found that Chewy wouldn't poo everyday either and I think it's because she was absorbing most of the nutrients in the food and didn't have much waste. One thing I do know though is that you can take the cat away from living feral, but you can't take the feral out of the cat :lol: Chewy is a feral cat at heart and much prefers to be outside doing her own thing instead of being patted by people.

Naw look at you, Mother Onyx :D Good kitten-raising! Go Captain!

Have to agree with Trill. My kitty is an adopted maltreated-as-a-kitten girl - I've had her since she was about 1yo, she was taken from her mum too early and then not looked after and she is a little psycho. She's now 12, so she's been with me for over 10 years, but she still hisses at me if I catch her at a bad moment.

So don't expect too much from him!

Yippee glad he's doing so well!
I agree, he might not be to cuddly, specially with Rosie in the house. We found that our ex-feral didn't want to know us when we had another cat and she was under 2, rehomed our other cat (REALLY didn't like babies/kids) and she's gotten older she's quiet snuggly and smoochy now when the mood strikes her.

Sent from my HTC Desire using Tapatalk