Introduction
On this page, we will talk about the different stages of your furry friends life, from being a small ball of zoom and vroom all the way through to being a chunky peice of meat that barely moves off the window cill!
The zoom and vroom - Kitten
Your new feline friend!
By rule of the book, when you purchase your kitten, it should be no younger than 8 weeks old. This will have given the original owner time to move the kitten of mummy's milk onto either kitten milk, dry kitten kibble or kitten wet food. Usually, the kitten will already be litter trained and eating one of the two solid foods above.
When you bring your kitten into your home, it will be overwhelming for them at first. Sit down, put your face on the floor and look around - that's what kitten sees! It is a completely new environment for kitten, with completely new people and many, many new smells!
Day One
As said above, day one will be very overwhelming for kitten. You should use one room as "base camp" for kitten. This room will be vital, as it will be the place where the kitten becomes comfortable in its new environment.
Before you even bring your kitten home, you want to make sure you have the following things in place:
- A litter tray
- A water bowl
- A food bowl
- A hiding place (usually a cat bed with a covered top)
- A number of toys spread around
- CAT PROOF BASECAMP!
These things are essential. Once they are in place, you can bring kitten home.
Assuming that you have brought kitten home in a box or a cat carrier, you should open the carrier or box and let kitten work its way out. One thing to avoid is forcing kitten to do anything, ever. Especially on day one!
Once kitten has left the box, it will still be very nervous. Leave kitten to explore its surroundings. From experience, my kittens always warmed up to me and my partner in the first 30 minutes of arrival. If kitten is comfortable with you and allows you to stroke it and pick it up but hasn't yet approached its litter box, pick up kitten and put it in the litter box. Cats are intelligent creatures, it will understand that is where it should do its business. Repeat this process with the food and water bowls too. Basically, give kitten a base camp tour!
This next part is personal preference.
Most people will tell you that on the first night, put your kitten in your bedroom in a cat pen. Whilst there is nothing wrong with this, I do it slightly differently. When it was my kittens first night, I put her in a cat pen in her base camp room, which contained all her food and water as well as her litter tray. However, the pen should be of a decent size as cats like their eating area to be seperate from the area where they do their business. I do this as I believe the kitten will not be fully comfortable with basecamp room on day one, which is why I let it spend the night in that room. Yes, kitten may cry, but kitten will be fine!
2 months - 12 months
Our feline friend isn't classed as a mature cat for a long time. In fact, kittens don't fully mature until they're about 7 years old!
Your kitten remains a kitten until 12 months of age, when it is then classed as a "young adult".
During your kittens "kitten" stage, it will be learning everything. Enhancement of skills such as improving on burying its business in the litter tray, improving on its hunting skills when it pounces on its toys along with many other things. They can become quite annoying, especially if you have a stubborn cat. No matter how many times you move it from behind the TV, it will still go back behind the TV and then stare at you! However, the cuteness is 24/7 and that outweighs the annoyance your furry friend can sometimes bring you!
A growth chart, showing the growth of your cat in its "kitten" stage!
12 months onwards !
Once your kitten has surpassed around 12 months of age, you'll notice that not a lot changes. Yes, they are bigger and their bites hurt more. However, they will usually eat less than a young kitten as their growth rate is still continuing, just not at a fast rate like it was in the kitten stage. I haven't got much experience in the older stages of cats, as my oldest cat is only 8 months old. However, from asking friends who own cats as old as 12 years of age, the only thing I can add to this section is that the older they get, the more they chill out!