We have a new kitten!!

I have been the fortunate owner of many cats for many years, but to be honest, never the owner of a real kitten type kitten. About a year is the youngest I've ever adopted a cat. So now that we have a kitten, I'm totally excited.

Trixi was born 8/15 of this year and we got her on 10/15. She was completely litter trained, hand raised and just sweet as pie. She's had her first vet visit, where she was declared completely healthy and worm free. She had her first round of shots, and will get her second round on 11/15 when she gets spayed. She lives with a 2 year old Torti named Punky. Punky wasn't so thrilled for about 2 days, now they're doing great!

I have a few questions to ask if you don't mind.

1. Just how many times a day do kitties poop? Goodness, I bet she's going about 5 times most days, nice, dark firm poop - but still that seems like a lot.
2. How far should we let the two go playing? They do a lot of tussling and wrestling, but sometimes Punky gets silly and gets her in a good grip and rabbit kicks, should we stop this? Is there really such thing as a "death bite"?
3. Is there anything we can give her for teething? She's a chewer right now and she hurts really bad. My mom says give her a carrot, but I can't imagine her chewing on a carrot.
4. Is she old enough to be introduced to catnip? I can't imagine that catnip is really good for cats, I mean getting them high seems wrong to me.


Any good advice we need to know as she gets a bit older.

Congratulations on your new kitty and welcome to TCS! Please feel free to post pics of your kitties. We are very visual here.

Kittens poop...all the time! The younger they are, the more they eat, and the more they poop. As she gets older, she'll poop less. Of course, that means you need to have several litter boxes spread throughout your home, like one in every room. Additionally, the quality of food you're feeding her also affects output. But, they still poop A LOT.

Watch for them to get too rough when playing. Also, make sure that Trixie isn't overly pestering Punky. If you think they're getting too rough, just use a towel to separate them and "herd" one away into another room, of distract Trixie. She probably is easily distracted since she's so young.

Soft chew toys and plastic bendy straws are good for chewers. When the ends of the straws get ratty, just clip them off. When the straw gets too short, throw it away. They're cheap, too!

Most kitties don't respond to catnip that young. I would wait for a few more months to let her grow up a bit before introducing catnip.

By the way, if you don't already know it, you'll need to kitten proof your home and hang on for a wild ride!! Life is so fun with a kitten!

Welcome to TCS! In my opinion, the rabbit kicks are Punky's way of telling the kitten "Hey little one, don't get carried away when we play. I was here first. You're new --I'm the boss. Here's a few kicks to prove it. And don't you forget it!"

Originally Posted by stephanietx

Kittens poop...all the time! The younger they are, the more they eat, and the more they poop. As she gets older, she'll poop less. Of course, that means you need to have several litter boxes spread throughout your home, like one in every room. Additionally, the quality of food you're feeding her also affects output. But, they still poop A LOT.

Click to expand...

We're feeding a good quality cat food that sells in our area, it's all that Punky has eaten since we've had her and she's so shiny and healthy it's not funny. we also use the Breeze litter system and the first day I brought her home the first thing I did was take her in there and show it to her - then about every 30 minutes after until she finally did pee in it. By the time it was bedtime she'd pooped in it twice and peed without me taking her there.

RE: Punky and her being overly bothered. We're lucky that Punky basically has her own room. We have a finished garage that is her get-away room. She has her own litter box out there too but not food or water so she at least has to come out for food/water.

The real reason we got a kitten was that we live on the edge of town, right next to farmland, the neighbors across the field have barn cats that like to come visit our yard and Punky watched them out our windows and it made her run away. We really thought that if she had her own kitten in the house she wouldn't want to run off, and 7 days later she's not made one move towards the door when I go outside to garden or leave. Before it was a big mess when someone wanted to go out the door -until we decided to start sequestering her in the garage. But then, that was no fun for us or her because she wasn't getting any affection that way and we weren't getting a cat. Now we can use the garage as a get-away from the Trixter room when Trixi has pushed her too far.

I've caught them kissing each other and just laying together so integration has worked pretty darn well. We love cats, we love Punky dearly and this kitten is going to be loved just as much - if my legs and chest can take the puncture wounds. I'm the only one she climbs so far.

This is day 1 -


Punky - cherry thief

Oh goodness, your babies are PRECIOUS! Congrats on the new addition!

Oh I have decided that she's really possessed by demons she's so mean this morning - lordy.

She got her first nail clipping at about 6:30 a.m. after tearing off 2 layers of skin.

They're both simply beautiful and adorable!!

Kittens are like that. Sweet and cute one minute then they're full of it the next. As you work with her, she'll gradually calm down, but it's a good thing you're clipping nails. That will help all the way around.

Something else you might try for toys is to cut toilet paper or paper towel tubes into pieces about 1"-1.5" long. She can bite on those, bat them around, and play with those.

Aw they are so cute.

My cats love catnip, but it will take a while for the little one to respond. Catnip provides your kitty with good exercise. I have 7 seniors who would not be moving about much were it not for the nip. I grow it in the garden and when we had ferals, I never had a good crop. Every am it was destroyed!

Don't look at it as drugging. Cats have responded to catnip since time began!

Congrats on your new family member!