Kitty Sweaters

Ok, I have no clue where to post this, so here it goes. Last night as I was falling asleep, I was thinking about newborn kittens, mainly orphaned ones. I plan on fostering orphaned kittens in the future, but I was thinking...they must get cold, even with the hot water bottles and heating pads, especially when being fed. So, ok I know I am weird, and I think of weird things before falling asleep, but what if I were to make little sweater vests for them? Would that help, I would use fleece and then cut two little leg holes out, and then attatch velcro so it is just like a vest. Has someone already thought of this, and or would this harm babies?

hmm sounds like you had a brainstorm!

I have no idea if it would harm them or not. Perhaps if the velcro was sticking out and the sharp edges were to touch their skin - that could harm them. If it was heavy and impeded in their movement to get to the momma - that could harm them too. But that's all I can think of design-wise.

Good luck!

Thanks, when thinking of this I am thinking about kittens that don't have a mother to nurse, ones that need to be bottle fed. Maybe if instead of just square edges, I could round the velcro edges off. The fleece I have isn't heavy at all, but I never thought of that so thanks! If anyone else has any input go ahead!

I would even go so far as to say to put sleeves on them, front and back. Who wants cold limbs. You are very creative.

Aww thanks. I thought of that, and it would be fine as long as it didn't touch there little bottoms, because that might stimulate them to go to the bathroom. If only I had some babies right now to try it out on..*sigh* oh well, guess I just gotta wait!

You could make cut outs for their tails !! They'd be real COOL cats

Meagan, you have an interesting idea there. You would most likely find that you'd have to replace the vest at least a few times a day as tiny kittens tend to get a bit messy sometimes. Depending on the size of the kitten, it may impede their movement and their ability to crawl to a cooler place in their box if they get too hot. You might also find that it's very difficult technically as making them in such a small size would be very fiddly. The last thing is, it may not make all that much difference to the kitten's warmth. Until they are at least 3 weeks old, kittens produce very little of their own body heat and depend almost entirely on external heat sources. Putting them in a vest may even hamper their ability to absorb warmth from heat pads etc.

If you make some up, and are OK with posting to Australia (should be quite inexpensive as they are so small), I'd be happy to give them a go on my kittens.

Thats a good point, I planned on only putting it on while bottle feeding, and taking off when they are in a bed as so they don't get all tangled in it, and just for safety purposes. I would love to try and make some for you, but it might be hard since I don't know their size. The smallest kitty I have is Doku she is 5 lbs and almost a year old. Maybe the vests will end up just being a cutesy thing? Heh, I know my cats would kill me if I tried putting a sweater on them (already tried with Mia, she is so tiny and skinny so we bought a little puppy sweater for her to keep her warm in winter, she was pissed!)

Birth - 3 to 3.5oz
1 week - 4oz
2 weeks - 7oz
3 weeks - 10oz
4 weeks - 13oz
5 weeks - 1 Pound

I have kittens at all ages and stages, including preemies, that were 2.5oz at birth so you could make any size LOL.

Ok, my mom said we can probably go to wal mart tomorrow because they always have fleece, especially scraps that don't quite make a yard yet. They will probably look pretty darn funny, I can think up great stuff, but not that good at making it look as great! Haha.

One of the other members here adopted a Sphinx kitten (Cupid) and brought him home a couple of months ago. You might already know about this, but in the first few pictures of Cupid that were shared here, he is wearing little sweaters, and I read somewhere that these sweaters are actually old socks. Maybe infants or toddlers socks would work for newborn kittens? Here's a link to a thread showing Cupid wearing his sweaters. http://www.thecatsite.com/forums/sho...d&pagenumber=1

Credit for the idea of using old socks as sweaters for cats goes to Purr.