Marking newborns

I have noticed breeders using different color collars on the new kittens. I have looked on Amazon but didn't find what I want. Anyone know what they use and where to order them? Or maybe someone has another creative way of "marking" kittens Thanks for any ideas an links!!

I know on dogs/puppies they tie different color strings.

Maybe something you'd ordinary put on newborn babies, like socks?

They use string? In the pictures I've seen it looks like tiny Collards.I guess yarn would work, not very exciting though lol.

A professional breeder of pure bred dogs used different color string/yarn.  But you'd want to make sure to remove the string if the cats started chewing on it or in any way became less strong.

Newborn baby socks might work.

Well yes of course I'd remove it if is was in any way a danger to the babies what would I do with a baby sock? Cut rings out of it? Not sure what you have in mind.

How small are newborn kittens paws?  newborn children's feet?  I was thinking probably naievely that you could slip a sock over one of the kittens paws, or perhaps head or tail?

Or maybe dog mittens:  dogs go walking so maybe there are socks for puppies?

I doubt anything will stay on their paws. I've only seen people use different colors of string/yarn/elastic. You can get small collars (woven so you can put the keeper anywhere), but even the smallest is 1/2 inch thick, and that would be pretty big on baby kittens.

There are also paper collars made especially for puppies, but, again, they're pretty thick for kittens.

I've also heard of marking toenails with baby-safe nail polish.

Lol sounds like yarn is going to be the simple answer here. And that's fine, I do like to be creative and make things hard on myself :-)

If the coat is pale you can use food dye to mark them.  I've also heard of nail varnish being used on their claws.

Would the popular elastic bands girls/women use for pony tails be too big?

I have always used nail polish - just a tiny spot on a claw. I would be scared to use anything string or yarn like - if the kitten didn't swallow it the mother might.

Yeah, I didn't even think about the queen being upset by it. I just know one of my queens was bread with only one male. If all the baby's look alike I might mess up at weight time. So nail Polish it is, or the food coloring. The baby's of both litters should be light. One queen is all white with a tiny blue smudge on her head, the other is a ragdoll( my best guess)

I used different colors of nail polish on just one paw. I was too worried about accidental strangulation with yarn, ribbon, etc. But I do think the sock idea would be good, if it wouldn't interfere with grooming...

OrientalSlave said:

If the coat is pale you can use food dye to mark them.  I've also heard of nail varnish being used on their claws.

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I think the food coloring is the best option because it's made for ingestion. No worries if they licked a little.

Whatever works.  I got the nail varnish idea from a Russian Blue breeder who had two queens that gave birth to a total of 12 kittens at almost the same time and shared kitten care - one did day shift, the other did night shift.  Since they were RBs it's very hard to tell them apart.

Yes I'm sure I will have to mark just to keep track lol I didn't last year an had over 30 kittens, it was nuts. So this year I'm only doing 4 queens at a time. So I have room for two more at this time