New Kitten! Help?!

Hi, tomorrow i am going to go and visit my new kitten where it is still with its mother. It is medium hair...half persian or something and its an orangy colour...it's going to be beautiful...a big playful Tom aswell...with a pretty face. The trouble is, it is only five weeks old at the moment, and i look at it with its mother all secure and happy and i think that possibly it is a bit too early to take it away. It seems unfair. The cat-owner is very willing for me to take the kitten whenever is convenient for me, but i was wondering what length of time kittens really need to be with their mothers to be happy and normal. If five or six weeks is relatively normal then i'll give it a week and pick the kitten up but i just wanted to check.

Also, i was wondering if you had any tips for keeping kittens. I've had one before, but it was a stray i found. It was a kitten that was literally only just walking and jumping...couldn't have been more than a few weeks old, it came leaping torwards me while i was sitting in the park and followed me most of the way home. I wanted to keep it but i assumed it lived nearby so left it alone. A few days later there was nasty weather and it was raining hard, i found the kitten quite near to my house in a bush meowing, completely drenched and looking very unhappy. so we took it in and it matured alot with us. Unfortunately, it had difficulty settling in and one day, it ran away and we never saw ziggy again. A sad story, but i've paid for the kitten this time - and i know it's spent some time with its mother unlike ziggy, i don't want to make any mistakes this time.

Any tips to make the kitten happy?

Samx

Wow, have you come to the right place! In my opinion a kitten should stay with it's mother until they can recieve their first shots. They recieve some anti-bodies from their mothers milk. This is about 8 weeks old. I personally, keep my kittens until they are closer to 12 weeks to make sure they have had 2 shots and are less likley to become ill. Make sure to find out what brand of food the kitten is getting now. If you change it quickly it could make the kitten ill.
You should take the kitten to the vet first thing for a check up and shots.
At home you should have:
Litter box
Litter
Scoop
Premium Food
Food dishes
Halter Lead and ID
Toys
Scratching post

Keep us posted as to the name of your kitten and the many adventures you both enjoy together!

Almost forgot...
Comb

As the kitten is part persian you will need to comb it out a couple times a week!

Hi Destiny-

I can imagine how excited you are to have this little boy. But please try and wait a bit. Twelve weeks is the best age to separate mom from babies. At that age, mom has been able to teach them potty manners, social skills and just plain old manners. If in your haste to have this kitty and you take him to early, you will have to teach him, and trust me it is not easy!

On the sister site to this one www.Meowhoo.com under Basic Pet Care you will see a link that says Just For Kittens. There is a very good website listed under there that talks about all aspects of kitten care, and although Fran is talking about orphaned babies, it is still a good read to learn stuff.

Good luck, and I hope you do wait a bit more before picking up your little guy.

I am also going to put this into our Care & Grooming forum where you will get others to answer you as well.

I agree. Leave him with his kitty mummy as long as you can. Gorgeous Barney didn't learn enough from his mummy and now it's hard to teach him although he is learning (because he is such a smart boy!) It is hard to leave them though. I always thought 6 weeks was the way to go but the vet tells me that is too early. Leave him as long as you can and then you can reap the benefits of all his mummy has taught him.
Diann in Australia

Yes as the others here have said, please leave the kitten with its Mother for as long as you can, 5 weeks is too early. I personally bought a kitten which the owner told me was 8 weeks old, but she was tiny, I believe now she was probably not much more than 4 or 5 weeks, she only lasted about 5 days

All the best with your new baby!! I'm sooo jealous!! Let us know what you decide for a name, and post pics as soon as poss... we all love to "oooh and ahhh" over kitty pics....

I saw him today....he's so amazingly cute. I understand that i have to wait...its not fair to take baby away from mum early, but it's such a shame to miss them when they are at this age. There are four of them and they are literally all bouncing bundles of fluff. I'm not sure if the cat owner will be happy for us to wait more than eight weeks, but i'm happy to try and make it drag on as long as possible if you think that's best.

We allready have:
Litter box (mini kitten-sized one)
Litter
Scoop
Premium Food (felix kitten...same as what he's being fed at the moment + kitten milk at the beggining)
Food dishes (plastic ones but im not sure if that's best)
Toys
Scratching post
And we have a comb

What is a Halter Lead and ID?...i'm not sure if we have that...

Thanks for the replies guys....has anyone had problems with unhappy cats after they've been taken from their mother after 6-8 weeks? Or have they all settled in ok...?

Destiny, a halter lead is like a lead for cats, we don't have them much in this country as its more common to let your cat out, however if you have an indoor only cat and want to take him/her out, then these are a great idea. ID can be anything from a little plastic tag on the collar to a microchip which a vet can do for you, personally I'd get both Also, if you are putting a collar on him, try to get an elasticated one as these are less dangerous, you see soemtimes cats get into difficult ituations and get their collars cought on things... if they are not eleastic or "break away" collars the cat would be stuck.
Also if you don't want to miss out on the real "baby baby" stage, you could always ask the current owner to take a few pics for you, or when you go to visit again, take a camara and snap away!! (then rush back and post them here!!)

PS, generally they settle in pretty quick, though don't be surprised if they are shy and hide away for the first few days!

12 weeks really is the best for kittens to learn things from mother cat. 8 weeks would be the earliest they should be separated from Mom. They need the nutrition from her milk, and she needs to teach them a few things, like Hissy said. 8 weeks is pretty common, although not perfect. If taken before that you may have behavioural issues like playing too rough/biting, problems using the litter box since Mom hasn't really taught him, suckling, etc. We get a lot of people looking for help with behaviours because kittens were taken away from Mom too early.

Sounds like you are quite prepared for your little one's arrival. Don't forget to have lots of toys for your baby. He will be in the "kitty kamikazi" stage when you get him, which is a ton of fun but difficult to keep his attention. Also, one more thing, kittens that young don't usually respond to catnip. They develop the taste for it around 6-8 months old.

I was told by the lady in the pet shop not to give my kitten a collar untill its a bit older because during their playful kitten stage, it could be quite dangerous...so i've kept that of my list....i allready have some little toy mice....and i've also got those plastic balls with bells inside...which are suppost to be really good....

I found with Nik (15 weeks) that we didn't need to buy lots of toys because he loves to play with things like bottle caps, balls of crumpled paper, cardboard tubes from paper towels, pegs...

He loves the little furry mice, too!


Naomi