first time cat owner - help!!

hello everyone,

My children and I found 3 orphaned kittens that were born under our neighbors shed. The mother cat is no longer around. We have taken one of the kittens in and gave the other 2 away just today. We guesstimate that they are between 5 and 6 weeks old, but really do not know for sure. I will bring ours to the vet tomorrow.

I have never owned a cat in my life - and am completely out of my comfort zone about how to care for her, train her, have her socialize and become part of our family, etc.

Any advice, or words of wisdom to help this new cat owner that is totally baffled right now??

thank you all so much!

L

Hi and welcome to TCS. Please visit www.kitten-rescue.com You'll see down the left-hand-side is a list of ages and stages of kittenhood. Click on these to get a better idea of how old the kitten is and also find out how to care for a kitten of this age. 5-6 weeks is still very young to be without the mumcat so the kitten may have a bit of a hard time adjusting. Good luck with her.

Also, given that this kitten was outdoors....please be patient with it regarding training it to use a litterbox.

Katie

thank you for the replies - believe it or not, she is trained in the litter box already; I guess I'm pretty lucky!

I'll check out the site you gave me - any other info from y'all here is great too.

L

Hurray on the box-training skills! Bless you for rescuing those poor orphans. Too bad about their mama-kitty going missing. At that young age, they still need to be with someone else, esp. since the littemates have been separated. But that's okay, it will mean stronger bonding with your children & you. I'm sure that you'll get plenty of good advice; for my bit, i recommend reading all you can about understanding cat language (esp. reading the body language) and how to kitten-proof your home (such as keeping the toilet lids down, to prevent accidental drowning, and removing toxic plants, protecting power cords) mostly the basic things that you'd do if a toddler was around. Please keep us updated on how the new little one is doing!

that's good to hear. any pics?

good luck with your kitty
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