In this article we will see with Dr. Enrica Rigolon what to do in the first months when we adopted a kitten. Saying “I want a cat” is not enough, better to find out first about all the things to do when we have our kitten and what are the “health steps” to which we will have to submit it in the first months of life.
Usually if you buy a purebred cat from a breeder, they will advise you on all the operations to do, for example when to sterilize the kitten, when to vaccinate it, how to make it settle in the house. But if we adopt a cat from an association or if we find a kitten and we want to keep it, we may need more information.
In this article we talked about the preliminary operations to prepare the house for the arrival of the kitten, and what is needed to have at home for the arrival of a kitten, but in this article we will see what are the phases from the veterinary point of view, to be taken into consideration to start a healthy life with our cat.
We will therefore see a series of F.A.Q. on the medical phases of the kitten’s life to which Dr. Enrica Rigolon kindly replied.
I advise you not to detach the kitten from its mother before the eighth-ninth week of life, because until the ninth week of life the kitten is completing what is her socialization period, a period in which she learns communication with other cats , he learns to communicate with other species, so with us human beings, with dogs, he has the possibility, with the various species of human beings, because different is also the way to approach an adult rather than a child, rather than to an elder.
Read also: Kittens in adoption, when the detachment from the mother.
It is important that there is the possibility for the kitten to stay with mama cat, who teaches him self-checks: if mama cat does not have the opportunity to do so you will then find yourself with kittens that will scratch you, bite you, exaggerate with vocalizations, make a little crazy, because she is a mother cat who teaches her within this age, so don’t take them home too soon.
At the ninth week of the kitten’s life, the weaning process is also completed, so even the kitten will already be used to eating alone, all of which will make your insertion easier.
in family.
When you take the little kitten home, maybe ask the old owner or animal welfare association to give you a cover, some reference that allows him to take home some of the territorial pheromones that the kitty had in the old environment, so that he has of references, because up to his fourth or fifth month he is not yet able to organize the territory well in the new house, because he does not yet know how to mark it, how to deposit his pheromones, and then give him at least a reference.
Put his cover in his basket and help him say: this is the resting place. When you take it home you have to have a basket for resting, the litter box with the sandbox, and various toys, then I advise all cat owners to have a water fountain, and if you keep them closed at home a small investment also with scratching posts, ladders to enrich the environment.
I have everyone do what I call a “mini quarantine”: we do not go to the vet before about ten days, let them get through this stress phase, because stress causes them immunodepression and therefore could risk falling ill.
Leave him alone, then, after this mini quarantine when you see that he does not develop any signs of illness, then we take him to the vet for the first medical things.
I always start by examining the stools: pick up the kitten’s poop from the litter box, it is not important if it is dirty with a sandbox, and we take it with you, and you also bring the kitten with you. We see that intestinal parasites have, we weigh the kitten and consequently we give you the most appropriate drug for your intestine, for intestinal parasites.
If it was a kitten from catteries or from situations in which there is poor hygiene it may also be that we propose a giardia test, if it does not have beautiful stools, or it may be that we propose the research of bronchopulmonary strongyles, which are own pulmonary parasites.
As early as the eighth week of the cat’s life we can start with vaccinations. If the kitten is fine, every 3-4 weeks we make calls, up to the sixteenth week of life of the kitten, the international guidelines say, because there are kittens that acquire from the mother cat, with colostrum, an antibody package so much strong, so long lasting, so if we interrupt the vaccination calls before week 16 it could be that his maternal antibodies cancel us out the effect of the vaccine and we end up with the kitten as if it had not been vaccinated.
So I know that for many it may be a novelty, but we must continue with the vaccination references until at least the sixteenth week of life of the kitten.
Does it depend on the life your kitten will make … will he live exquisitely segregated at home? Then it is not necessary to give him the vaccine for feline leukemia, because leukemia takes if he comes into contact with other cats, so if he lives indoors, just do the classic trivalent vaccination, that is the vaccine for goblets, herpes viruses and feline panleucopenia virus.
If instead you think, even in the future, to let him leave the house, or it could be that you need to take him to a boarding house for cats, where they mix all the cats very calmly, without getting into trouble, also make him the vaccine for leukemia and you are rest assured that you have protected it all, even for this until at least the sixteenth week of your life.
As for the vaccine references to the cat, traditionally the vaccine is recalled at one year of age of the cat, or one year after the last vaccine made, it is a tradition because even there, in reality, studies say that we should vaccinate them first, that in many kittens also the last reference made to the 16th week is not protective, so in reality the last guidelines would say to vaccinate the kittens at six months, because it could be the only vaccine actually protective.
I know that I could raise a hornet’s nest with these speeches, because you never do, many owners are against vaccines, the alternative to know if I have to vaccinate or I don’t have to vaccinate could be to measure their antibody titers to see if the vaccine has had an effect, but this involves taking blood that the cats do not like, higher costs for you and consequently the solution that is mostly found is: I make you again the vaccine puncture and I am calm.
If we are at the sixteenth week of life, at about four months, you have to start thinking, in case you have a sissy, about sterilization, because around the fifth-sixth month he can have his first warmth. For the male kitten instead you can sleep being quiet a little more, because they become puberi later than the females: they become puberi around the seventh, eighth, ninth month, it depends from little boy to boy.
The international guidelines would suggest letting them become puberi, of giving the first heat at least, the kittens, however, it is difficult with the fact of living in close contact with our cats because a cat the heat is very difficult to bear, because it is able to keep you wake up every night for a week, the male kitten when it becomes pubic begins to pee with a smell so acrid, so unbearable that easy to say: “I leave to become pubis”, then live with it is another pair of sleeves.
Not only that: if you let it become pubis and mark, it learns to mark the territory with vertical markings on the walls and then you risk not lifting it anymore. So this is what I do in the clinic: I advise everyone to sterilize the micette within the sixth month of life and the boys evaluate them even during vaccination visits and between the seventh and eighth months we castrate, except perhaps with the little boys who are so tiny underweight, maybe we give them more time to mature, but this is the age we recommend for these surgeries. Read also: Why sterilize?
Another thing that can be done from the sixth month of life is the test for Fiv and the test for Felv, and we usually take the opportunity of the fact that they are sedated and then under anesthesia for surgery, to make him take blood and do this test too.
Why is the Fiv and Felv test done at this age? It is our choice, to make a single collection on the cat, because they are tests we do together, at the same time we test the cat for both diseases.
Why don’t you take the Fiv and Felv test before six months? Because we must be sure that, if the kitten is born of a mother with Fiv, not to test with the test any maternal antibodies that the micetto has acquired from the mother and therefore we cannot tell you “it is sick” and maybe instead it is simply still HIV positive for mother’s antibodies. From 6 months onwards this possibility is excluded.
In reality the test for Felv we could have done well before, because instead we measure the virus, but since cats absolutely do not appreciate having their blood drawn, they hate it, they hate the hemostatic strap on the arm, to stress the kitten less possible, in order not to make him hate the surgeries, we opt to take blood when the kitten is under anesthesia to do sterilization.
Especially if the kitten leaves the house, but even if it is only inside, you will have to provide good protection against pests that are fleas and ticks. The use of flea or anti-ticks generally more or less for all pesticides starting from the eighth week can be done safely.
Especially if the kitten leaves the house, but even if it is only inside, you will have to provide good protection against pests that are fleas and ticks. The use of flea or anti-ticks generally more or less for all pesticides starting from the eighth week can be done safely.
