Wow, whole lot of posting going on while some folks sleep! Thanks for all the useful advice folks. I really appreciate it.
This morning’s update: when “we” got up, I spent a couple of minutes getting some stuff from my bedroom and then went and peed, and by the time I got to the kitchen… kitty had peed all by herself! Yay!
Heh heh! My kitty scratches the walls of the box and the floor (TBH, one of the ways I guess that it’s time for her to go is when she scratches the floor around her bowls which BTW is the location of her two accidents on the first day I got her.
I will keep the storage box option in mind, thanks, whichever crosses my path first.
The bathroom is too small anyway, but I am trying to de-sensitize her to water: when I first placed her water bowl down, I splashed the water around to get her to come to it and she seemed quite intrigued by the sound / sparkly motion or something and she sometimes plays with it, so now a small rubber ducky lives in her bowl and she pats it around sometimes. I also let a few drops of water drop on/ around her when she is accompanying me in the bathroom. She doesn’t seem fazed (or is it phazed?) by water sounds so far!
I knew about clumping litter so I got that, but had never heard it was dangerous for babby katz - in fact she has on occasion swallowed something like a few grains of it :eek: but doesn’t seem to have come to any harm so far! [knocking on wood smiley]
Question about the other end of the digestive process: any advice about how many meals / amount of food I should give her?
Vet said she should have 3 meals a day at this age and 2 when she grows up a bit.
Thing is I can’t space out 3 meals evenly: the first can be between 07:00 and 09:00 in the morning, the second after 18:00 when I get home and the third?
TBH I have been giving her a small morning meal, leaving some dry food for while I’m at work and feeding her again when I get back, usually adding something more later on, which makes 4.
I aim for 1-2 tablespoons full per meal .
Thoughts?
As far as feeding, offer as much canned as she wants to eat. A kitten that small, I would rather see leftovers than underfeeding, they eat more than you would think. There’s a lot of growing happening in those first six months. Depending on the brand of food, a 5.5 ounce can of grocery store brands like Friskies generally have 200-ish calories. An active adult may eat 1.5 to 2 cans a day (or more, especially large males), and I’ve seen kittens put away a can or more a day. The more boutique-style canned foods (think upwards of $1.50 per can rather than under a buck) can be more dense in calories - but those often have the calorie count listed somewhere on the label. Most can be looked up online.
As long as you’re feeding enough for her to walk away from a little left over, you’re doing fine. Do expect spurts, and if she’s looking for more she should have more while still growing, but then don’t be alarmed if she’s not as interested for a meal here and there as long as she’s hungry at the next. You can give a larger amount for “breakfast” as you are both likely getting up from not eating for 8 hours or so and since you’re leaving the house for work, some extra to tide her over is good, then two smaller meals, one when you get home and one before bedtime.
I’ve always open-fed mine - a bowl of dry kibble - to switch, add a piece or two of very wet kibble to the canned, and gradually switch to entirely wet kibble, then remove moisture. By 3 months, it should be on dry kibble. There are kibbles especially marketed for kittens through geriatrics. Don’t know if they are better than any other kibble. Cats need 19% (IIRC) protein - check the labels.
My cat hates still water - when she grew too big to get her head under the lavy tap (the thing shrunk! was her expression), I got her a fountain. Change the water at least every other day, and use a new, dedicated sponge/scratcher (no detergents) to clean all surfaces - even with the water circulating, crud can form. Nice thing about clumping litter - you know the urine output. She upped about 20% with the fountain.
Well, the vet said that I should give her 3 meals. In fact he said that I should train her by leaving the food out for half an hour and whatever wasn’t eaten by then should get thrown away (of put back in the bag in the case of dry food). His reasoning was that it’s not really advisable to have the digestive system at work at all times. It needs a rest. Also, so as not to encourage greed / overeating. But as far as I can see she paces herself very well, for instance if I put something like 2-3 tablespoonfuls of food she might eat half (I find it half gone when I get back from work) and then she’ll eat the other half (actually today I saved a bit of chicken from lunch and mixed it in with the leftover dry food). So far so good.
Poop update: I forgot to mention yesterday that she generally poops before eating.
Anyway, I got home, went into the kitchen, took her food bowl to add the chicken at the sink, and called her to the litter box.
She climbed in, played with her tail for a minute and then dug a hole in a corner where she proceeded to do a Very Large Poop which she then** Very Diligently Covered**!!
I’m so proud.
Tomorrow I will borrow my bosses camera and post the pics I owe you (meant to do it today but I forgot).
Right on schedule! You just have to give them a little time. Mama cats don’t “teach” kittens to cover their poops; they do it all by themselves. You’re going to have a great relationship with this love-bug!
I agree with the feeding method recommended by your vet for long term, just not that rigid for a kitten that’s so small. She will have dips and spurts in hunger as she grows, and for the first 6 months it’s really difficult to overfeed kittens. As long as you’re in tune with how hungry she is, and she’s leaving a little without acting starved, you’re probably OK. How much she needs to eat will be increasing significantly each week for the next couple of months.
Yay!