Your Pet Guide

Being a cat owner carries certain responsibilities other than making sure your pet is well fed and has a warm place to sleep. As well as these basic essentials, the health of your cat and protecting them from various feline diseases should also be high on your priority list as a cat owner.

Cat Vaccinations work exactly the same way as vaccinations for humans do. They help to boost the cat’s immune system by producing antibodies for various different diseases that can then fight off attacks from any potentially fatal illness that they may come into contact in the future.

The vaccine also prevents the cat from becoming a carrier of these diseases and in doing so is also providing protecting for other cats in the neighbourhood.

Kittens receive their first natural defences from illness via their mothers milk, which will protect them for the first seven to ten weeks of their life, However after this time these first defences become less effective and this is when some vaccinations should be given for the first time. Usually the first vaccinations are administered in two separate doses one around 9 weeks old the second at around 12 weeks old.

During this time and for several weeks afterwards, it is recommended that kittens be kept away from strange cats to enable the vaccines to take effect fully. Some vaccines require that a booster injection be given every year, however individual vets will decide if and when these are required.

There are many different kinds of vaccines available for your cat that can protect them from many different types of serious illness. Which ones are administered will largely depend on where you live in the world i.e. some countries are still prone to rabies where others are not, whether or not your cat will be an indoor or outdoor cat and your Vets recommendations for your particular cat. The most common vaccines given are to protect against:

Cat Flu – this can be quite a nasty illness and in severe cases can be fatal or cause disabilities such as blindness.

Feline Infectious Enteritis (FIE) – this is a rather nasty infection in the cat’s guts, which leads to severe diarrhoea and can also be fatal.

Feline Leukaemia virus (FeLV) – this is a fatal illness affecting the blood cells.

Feline Chlamydophilosis – this causes conjunctivitis in cat’s eyes and is often prescribed for cats that live with lots of other cats.

As with all vaccinations there are sometimes some small ill effects after the vaccination has been administered and cat owners should be aware of any changes in the cats behaviour and keep an eye open for any illness in their pet for a few days afterwards.

Often any ill effects are short lived and quite mild, such as slight tenderness in the injected area or a small swelling. However some cats also may develop flu like symptoms and tiredness for a few days afterwards. This is not serious and will pass after a few days.

In some very rare cases some cats develop a cancer at the injection site, this may occur weeks, months or even years after the injection. If any swelling remains or grows larger after a few days after the injection, it is recommended that the cat is returned for a check up by the Vet.

However cases of cancer due to a vaccine are rare and your cat is far more at risk from the diseases the vaccines protect them against, therefore it is widely agreed that the benefits of vaccines far outweigh any adverse reactions which may occur.

Rabies is still prevalent in the United States and is passed on via bites. It attacks the brain and causes the animal to behave in an aggressive manner towards real and imaginary objects. Other symptoms of this distressing disease is: difficulty in swallowing, weakness and sometimes paralytic. It is always fatal to both animals and humans and so it is recommended that all pets in America be vaccinated against it from an early age and regular booster shots given.

Any unvaccinated cat that receives a bite from a rabid animal will have to be euthanized and their brain tissue will have to be examined for the disease. A rather unpleasant experience, which could be so easily avoided by vaccination.

Do you need a cheap, healthy alternative to store bought kitten food to help wean your kittens off their mother's milk and transition them to traditional canned kitten food?


More than likely, they have shown little interest in regular canned food, preferring the milk to anything you might put in their bowl. Dry food will also be too hard on their developing teeth. The best option would be to start them on a food that reminds them of what they prefer, but can be mixed with traditional wet food to help transition them over.

This recipe is simple to make, and kittens find it delicious. Bring 1 1/2 cups of water to a boil, then remove the pan from the heat and mix in one envelope of unflavored gelatin. Be sure to mix thoroughly, and do not boil the gelatin. If the water tastes bad or has a heavy chlorine taste when it comes out of the tap, consider using filtered water instead.

Pour this mixture into a blender along with half of a 12 ounce can of goat's milk. Blend just long enough to combine thoroughly. Do not substitute cow's milk because cats tend to be lactose intolerant. Using cow's milk can lead to discomfort, diarrhea, and worse if fed to kittens. Add the following ingredients one at a time. After each addition, blend briefly to combine before moving on to the next.

You will want to use the lowest setting to avoid overmixing. Add: 3 tbsp full fat yogurt, 3 tbsp real mayonnaise, 3 tsp light corn syrup, and 1 raw egg yolk. Concerning the egg yolk, raw eggs carry a small risk of salmonella poisoning. To eliminate any risk of accidentally passing this on to your kittens, use eggs that have been pasteurized in their shells

You can serve the completed homemade kitten food the way it is, or you can store it for use later. To store for later usage, cover the mixture tightly in a small container. You can store it in the refrigerator for up to ten days or in your freezer for up to three months.

If U are going to use food that you have prepared in advance, you will want to warm it up before serving, especially if it is coming from the refrigerator or freezer. Cold food causes severe stomach upset in kittens. Warming it up will also make it more aromatic, and thus more appetizing to the kittens.

Everything your cat knows, good or bad, she learned in the first weeks of her life. Further, even though she is trainable as she leaves kitten-hood and grows into an adult, it becomes more difficult for her to change the way she does things as she grows older.

Is that the reason older cats seem to be crotchety ole' grouches? And why they won't move off of your favorite chair without a lot of grumbling? Maybe. But, it's well documented that the first weeks of a kitten's life is where they develop all the critical elements of their physiology and personality.

Physical Development and Growth:
The first weeks of a kitten's life is the most dramatic, growth-wise. At birth a kitten will weigh around 100 grams (3.5 oz). Normal weight gain is about 7-10 grams a day and their weight should double in 14 days. A healthy kitten is plump, firm and vigorous and they will nurse every 1-2 hours. They prefer one teat to nurse and find it by smell. When they're well fed their stomachs are round and they sleep quietly.

If they are crying and moving around, they are not getting enough to eat and may be taking in air when they nurse. Before, during, and after nursing, the queen will lick the stomach and perineal area (the area just above the tail) to stimulate urination and defecation. She'll do this for the first 2-3 weeks of her kitten's life.

At 3-4 weeks the kittens will begin to imitate their mom's eating and drinking habits. Keep a shallow dish for water available for them and you can also allow them to taste a kitten mush mixture of high quality kitten food, kitten milk replacement and hot water blended to the texture of infant cereal. Start off with 3-4 meals a day of this mixture.

At first the kittens will explore it, walk in it, and eat some. After that mom may finish the meal herself. Each week decrease the amount of milk replacement, water and time of blending. Weaning will be complete by 7-8 weeks when the kittens should be eating dry food and drinking water on their own.

This growth schedule matches what wild kittens will experience. Mom will nurse them for a while after birth. Then, she will hunt her territory for prey, bring it home and teach her kittens how to eat it. Later she will catch the prey and bring it home alive so that she can teach them how to kill.

Kittens need to learn fast because, being easy prey themselves, they are susceptible to predators . They also need to learn fast because mom's territory is not going to be sustainable for providing food indefinitely. As they grow they'll eat greater amounts and more often. So, they need to grow up, get out on their own, find their own territory and fend for themselves.

Personality and Socialization

Though cats are solitary creatures, they are not completely loners. Young kittens do not have a developed sense for personal space or territoriality. They'll snuggle in a ball with themselves or with mom in order to maintain normal body temperature. Conversely, they'll spread out a little if they're too hot. As they grow and their bodies develop the ability to maintain itself, they'll begin to find their own private spaces for resting or sleeping, but still play with each other. In the wild mom will stop providing food for them eventually.

She'll resume protecting her territory, causing her brood to leave or chasing the now adult kittens off. Now they'll need to establish their own territories and begin the cycle all over again. Domestic kittens may seek their own private space, but since food is readily available, they'll display less protective territoriality instincts with each other. They'll include your house as part of their territory, but exclude neighbor cats or other animals from the property.

While they're still kittens, they'll stalk and play to develop their balance and coordination. This is the training ground for learning predation and the basic survival techniques that has perpetuated the presence of cats for thousands of years. As cute as the play seems, this play is critical to the survival of the species.

Kittens will learn many things while they are young. For example:

• The food they learn to eat as a kitten, either in the wild or as domestic progeny, will be the food they prefer as an adult. If you feed a variety of foods (quality kitten food, but from different sources such as chicken, beef, seafood, lamb, etc.) they'll tend to be less picky as an adult. Wild kittens fed only mice will hunt mice as their main source of food as an adult.
• They will learn how to set boundaries in order to identify territory and private space. Kittens raised in closed places such as a cage will not be able to do this as an adult and will appear fearful; unable to establish or identify where the lines of boundary are. Either theirs or anyone else's. Their personal space will be very small, again making her very fearful, easily threatened and she'll hide or go into defensive postures easily.
• As already mentioned, play activities of stalking, wrestling, biting and chasing are all directly related to the development of predation techniques. In the wild, the success of an individual cat depends upon how well she learned these tactics, especially the aggressiveness in the application of these methods, when she was a kitten. The Queen plays an important role when she brings home live prey to teach the kittens how to kill and eat prey. The kittens may at first play with the prey, but soon they'll learn what they're supposed to do and associate the prey with food for sustenance. Domestic kittens, other than barn cats or other kittens who may receive this 'on the job training' come to expect their food to magically appear in a dish from you. Although they'll retain the instinct to apply the predation methods of 'stalk, chase, kill and eat', they may not refine them. Consequently, they may stalk and not catch, catch and not kill, and/or kill and not eat any prey that catches their attention. And since domestic cats develop a kitten/Queen identification with their human counterpart, you might find yourself the recipient of a special gift from them in the form of a field mouse, lizard or squirrel.
• Handling kittens born into your home will socialize them with people and other pets in your house. Most Queens will let you pick up her kittens right away. Just don't worry her by walking away with them. Any young children should not handle kittens without adult supervision to prevent injury to the kitten or the child. Stroking, petting, grooming and medicating kittens will acclimate them so that they're tolerant of these things as adults. The presence of dogs, birds, gerbils, fish or other pets in a kittens youth experience will teach them to be un-fearful of other animals (and not think of them as food) when they become adults. Of course, as with all things of this world, the theory is not fool-proof, but, generally true. Careful observation and intervention in a kitten's activities is always useful, with the emphasis on 'careful'.
• Punishment is not an option for training a kitten. Cats don't understand punishment and only associate it with the punisher, not the 'bad' act. They'll learn to fear you, and continue any 'bad' behavior. Training is best accomplished when the cat or kitten has an unpleasant experience associated with any particular behavior. For example, placing sticky tape over the end of a couch where the kitten is scratching will be an unpleasant experience and the instinct is easily transferred to a scratch post placed nearby. She'll remember this the rest of her life. If you punish or yell at her, she'll remember this too, and continue to scratch where she's not supposed to. Then hide from you when you come into the room.

Simply put, whatever your cat learns when she is a kitten, you will have to live with for the rest of her life. And there's no real expectation of changing those learned habits or behaviors. It is realistic to expect juvenile and adult cats can be trained. That's your only realistic alternative to change unwanted behavior after kitten-hood is passed. Still, 99% of who and what she is as an adult can be traced directly to her kitten experiences. And if she's a kitten in your home, a lot can be traced right back to you.

Ask any cat owners how to get rid of fleas in cats and you can expect a whole long list of advices on what to do, what flea treatment products to use and what to look out for. However, when you mention about kittens with fleas, expect to get some blank looks on the faces of whom you have approached.

Not surprising though. Why? You’re asking. This is because, kittens, especially very young ones, those that are less than 6 weeks old are extremely "fragile". Their immune system are not fully functional yet and as such, one wrong use of a harmful product on them may very well kill them on the spot.


If such, then can we just leave the fleas on them and wait till they are old enough to use commercially available flea products on them? To answer this question, let me run through some of the harm that fleas may bring to kittens, why it’s not advisable to use commercially available flea treatment products on them and what’s available that are safe for getting rid of flea in kittens

Fleas are blood-sucking pest. They feed on its host blood and if left untreated for a prolong period of time, it’s host will end up with anemia. This is especially so for kittens which are very young and the constant loss of blood to these bloodsuckers will cause anemia to develop very soon. Many deaths from anemia due to fleas infestation have been reported. Fleas also bring along parasites like tapeworm, which would result in malnutrition and weight loss in kittens. As such, it’s important that fleas be rid off from kittens soonest possible.

Commercially available flea control products are plenty. We have flea spray, spot-on topical solutions, and oral de-flea tablet or suspension. These products contain an insecticide that kills off fleas. Often, pet owners assume that products that are available in the market must be safe and hence no problem in using them on kittens with fleas.

This is far from truth. Use of insecticides on young kittens is very dangerous. These chemicals could easily intoxicate them. Their liver, kidneys when affected could be fatal and as such it’s always wise to avoid the use of insecticides on young kittens as much as possible.

This leaves kitten owners not much of a choice but we still have the flea comb. Flea combs are specially made fine-tooth combs that can be used to trap fleas when brushing through the hair coat of cats and kittens. Though not easy as fleas are scrambling around, you can also pick off fleas from the kitten and throw them into a bowl of soapy water to kill them.

Great care must be taken in choosing a product suitable for kitten with fleas. Safety of the kittens should be the main concern and should never be compromised. Learn to read labels to decide on its appropriateness for use on kittens and at all times, use of insecticides should be avoided if possible.