Foster Home and Age of Adoption

Thanks, msbedelia!

They have settled in nicely.  Both came out voluntarily from their cage to explore and play.  A little worrisome is that only one has eaten, and neither have used the litter yet.  This is 5 hours after being ripped from their mother's arms!  (A little melodramatic, are we?)

I put the good eater into the litter box and she pawed the litter but didn't produce.

I forgot to take some soiled litter and introduce it into the pristine new litter box.  Aw, poop.

My last kitten Rhys was a very sociable 11 week old when he came here, and it took him until the next day to start eating and pooping. You're on the right track. Congratulations, l know you'll have years of enjoyment from these guys.

l'm happy that you took them early if they were eating dog food! They wouldn't have been getting enough taurine.

Okay, now I'm embarrassed.  I looked at the dog food and cat food labels and did a comparison.  The foster is right: they are EXACTLY THE SAME, including taurine.

So if this is true, First Mate Dog Food being the same as First Mate Cat Food (Chicken), then of course, I'll buy the dog food as it is cheaper.

Both of them are eating now, but none of them has used the litter yet... their little bladders must be bursting.  They haven't gone to the toilet since yesterday 5 pm, and now it's nearly 10:00 am.

Are you using the same kind of litter and litter box they had at their foster home? I has gotten my kitten an uncovered box but she has a preference for covered boxes and wouldnt go to the bathroom until I put out a covered one.

Thank you for the help.  It is the same litter (softwood pellets) and an uncovered box (same as foster).  I wonder if the problem could be our presence in the tiny bathroom?

kcoutts said:

Okay, now I'm embarrassed.  I looked at the dog food and cat food labels and did a comparison.  The foster is right: they are EXACTLY THE SAME, including taurine.

Click to expand...

Don't be too embarrassed. Its not usually the case that they're the same, and in general feeding a cat dog food can have serious nutritional consequences for the cat. (As I'm sure you know.)

I have no advice on the elimination issue. I hope it has sorted itself out by now. I would guess that your presence could certainly be a factor. I apologize if I sound ignorant, but how can you be so sure they haven't gone?

Thanks for making me feel better!  Still embarrassing, my becoming a know-it-all after only doing a few weeks of reading.

Relief... they both peed within minutes of each other, 23 hours after their last pee.  The pee was followed minutes later by a poo.

I know they did not relieve themselves because we are using pine pellets.  When the kittens urinate, the pellets turn to dust.  I have a two layer litter box, the first layer a sieve, the second layer with some sawdust.  When the urine hits the pellets, it turns to mush.  After it dries, it turns into sawdust, which can be sifted through to the bottom layer and discarded.  Pretty cool.

We were "privileged" to watch them enjoy their first tinkle in our house. And girls were present to enjoy the first poo!  LOL!

The brand of cat/dog food is First Mate.  High on the ingredient list is potatoes.  That can't be good!

Woah, that's a crazy litterbox system!

I'm glad they went.

I wouldn't worry too much about it. As you can probably tell, I suffer from know-it-all syndrome, also after a relatively short time (months) of reading. I've never even owned a cat until this past March (and I seem to remember you have a long time ago?). So... ^^

Yeah, automatically I would assume the food is relatively low-quality just from the dog and cat ingredients being the same. Unfortunately, so many of the supposedly "high-end" and "grain free" cat foods still have potatoes in them. I'm like, if I can make vodka out of anything in your ingredient list, it isn't grain-free. ^^

Yeah, the litter box is pretty wild... especially since it's made up of leftover parts.  The sieve and rounded edge frame top were going to be thrown out by the shelter since they're considered garbage, so I took them, in case they worked with my wood pellet litter.  The bottom layer is a litter box that my husband's family used for their calico cat, some 18 years ago.  The sieve and the bottom don't fit together, but so far, that doesn't bother the cats.

Haha, once again you make me feel better.  Let's be know-it-alls together!  Actually, my personality type tends to give unsolicited advice.

First Mate is grain free AND high end.  It's rotten how they replace grain with potatoes, which aren't much better.  Sheesh!  And I really want to buy First Mate.  It's a local company.

How cool that you fit that together from disparate parts.

Yes, let's be know-it-alls together! ^^ I tend to get know-it-all-y around those very close to me or on the Internet. I was the worst know-it-all as a child! I'm actually a lot better now.

Oh, cat food companies. We so want to love you. Why can't you let us?

Here's a picture of my Frankenlitterbox.