Congratulations on the recent addition to your household! Now that you have a kitten to care for there are many things to consider. One of the most important things to do is to arrange to take your kitten to the veterinarian for a general health check. Your vet will be able to give you advice regarding basic care for your kitten as well as give them any vaccinations and worming treatments that are needed.
In the meantime, some of the basic aspects of kitten care you will need to consider include:
Nutrition
Kittens should be fed a high-quality commercial kitten food to ensure a balanced diet is provided. Avoid giving cow’s milk to kittens but ensure they have access to fresh, clean water at all times.
See these articles for more information:
- Do cats have special nutritional requirements?
- What should I feed my kitten?
- What should I feed my cat?
Five Pillars of a healthy feline environment
Meeting your kitten’s environmental needs is essential for them to be as physically and mentally healthy as they can be. This includes ensuring that they have choice about where they eat, drink, rest, play, scratch, and toilet, and opportunities to engage in normal behaviours that are important to them like stalking, pouncing, climbing, scratching, hiding, retreating, and exploring. It’s vital to provide an optimal environment to minimise negative experiences and promote positive experiences for your kitten, as well as to promote their good physical and mental health and wellbeing. Addressing these core needs can help reduce unwanted behaviour, and encourage safe, appropriate, and social behaviours.
There are five pillars of a healthy feline environment:
- Provide a safe place
- Provide multiple and separated key environmental resources
- Provide opportunity for play and predatory behaviour
- Provide positive, consistent, and predictable human-cat social interaction
- Provide an environment that respects the importance of the cat’s sense of smell and other senses
Having a good understanding of normal cat behaviour will help you to help your cat live a good life and safeguard their welfare.
For more information on how to create a healthy feline environment and on cat behaviour, see : Safe and Happy Cats
To help create a safe and happy home for your kitten, you need to offer them a variety of options (at least two choices for each resource in physically separated locations), then let your kitten decide which ones they use, when, and how. As a guide, for one kitten/cat you will need at least the following, all in separate locations:
- 2 x litter trays
- 2 x feed stations
- 2 x water bowls
- 2 x play areas with a variety of toys for your cat to enjoy
- 3 x different types of scratching surfaces (vertical, horizontal, and different materials)
- 3 x resting/hiding places in different locations (elevated observation/perching points, elevated hiding and rest places, and comfortable beds in quiet private areas).
If you have more than one cat, you’ll need to provide more resources in more separate locations so each cat can access their own essential resources whenever they want, without navigating interactions with other cats which can be stressful. You can find more information here about multi-cat households and the special considerations involved.
Grooming
Regular grooming (gentle brushing) is important, particularly for medium-haired and long-haired cats. Grooming should be an enjoyable and comfortable experience for your cat. Get your kitten used to being groomed from an early age Try stroking them first and then try brushing with a few gentle brushstrokes on the areas of their body that they like to be stroked to start with. You can give them some tasty cat food treats for allowing you to brush them and for being calm. Using treats will help your kitten to learn to associate brushing with positive things. Gradually increase the number of brushstrokes, the amount of grooming time, and areas groomed, rewarding as you go, until your kitten is comfortable with the process.
Avoid forced grooming or restraint, as this can cause stress and grooming may become a negative experience for your kitten. Kittens will indicate they need a break by showing signs such as swishing their tail, flattening or flicking their ears, tensing their body, growling, hissing or by grooming themselves intensely for a short period (which indicates stress). If you see these signs, stop grooming and resume another time, gradually building up again and rewarding them during grooming sessions to build positive associations.
Grooming removes dust, dead skin, loose hair, grass seeds and tangles and shed fur, which can help prevent your cat experiencing ‘fur balls’ – some cats will swallow fur when they self-groom, especially long-haired cats, and this can build up in the stomach to eventually be vomited.
Grooming should always be comfortable for your cat. Avoid any hair pulling or jerking movements. Fur mats and tangles may need to be carefully trimmed off using clippers or blunt-nosed safety scissors. Always point scissors away from your cat and ensure the skin isn’t touched. If you have any concerns or are unsure if you are able to safely trim off fur mats and tangles, talk to your vet.
In general, cats don’t need to be bathed, and most cats can find it quite stressful. Therefore, generally avoid bathing unless recommended by your vet for medical reasons.
For more information on grooming cats, see this article.
Reward-based training and cooperative care
The RSPCA supports reward-based training which is the most humane and effective way to train pets. This type of training involves rewarding your cat when they perform a ‘desired’ behaviour. Rewards can be in the form of a tasty cat food treat, verbal praise, or patting. ‘Rewards’ positively reinforce the desired behaviour and make it more likely your cat will perform the behaviour again.
Reward-based training also involves generally ignoring ‘undesired’ behaviours. For example, play time is a good opportunity for you to teach your kitten good manners. Occasionally games can get a bit intense and rough – make sure play time ends if they scratch hard or if there is biting. In this way, your cat will learn quickly that they don’t receive any attention for ‘undesired’ behaviours such as scratching hard or biting, and they will tend to stop doing these behaviours quickly.
Punishment should never be used with kittens or any other animal this scares them and is detrimental to their welfare and your relationship and negatively impacts learning.
Enjoyable reward-based training can be a fantastic opportunity for positive interactions between you and your cat. This can also provide important mental and physical stimulation for your cat and teach them skills and behaviours that may be helpful for you and your cat; for example, entering a carrier or having their eyes or mouth checked, or taking medication! These are called cooperative care practices and encourage and facilitate animals being active, willing participants in the husbandry and veterinary care they need (e.g., taking medication, being groomed), by using reward-based training and animal-friendly interactions.
Just make sure that these interactions are always positive, reward-based, and gradually introduced, always stopping if the cat is uncomfortable or stressed.
For more information see these videos from International Cat Care on reward-based training for cats:
Talk to your vet about regular health check-ups, vaccinations, microchipping, desexing, and flea and worm prevention.
Prompt and professional veterinary care is vital if your kitten becomes ill or injured. This can be expensive and ensuring that you have a plan in place to cover expected and unexpected veterinary costs is important; pet insurance is one option you may want to consider.
Healthcare and wellness activities (like giving tablets, cleaning ears, trimming nails, travelling to the veterinary practice) can be stressful for some animals and their caregivers. Cooperative care practices can help to overcome this and facilitates animals being active, willing participants in the husbandry and veterinary care they need. You can teach your cat to participate in regular husbandry procedures using reward-based training and animal-friendly interactions.
Desexing prior to sexual maturity effectively prevents unplanned and unwanted litters of kittens, helping to reduce the number of unwanted cats and kittens in the community. In addition to preventing unwanted litters, other benefits of desexing include reducing the risk of mammary cancers and uterine infections; reducing aggressive behaviour; reducing the likelihood of a cat roaming and, consequently, getting lost or injured; and reducing the likelihood of marking behaviours such as urine spraying. See this article for more information.
There is no benefit in allowing female cats to have one heat or litter before they are desexed. Pre-pubertal desexing is recommended, before cats can reach puberty at about 16 weeks of age. For more information, please see this article.
Please see this article for information about laws and regulations surrounding desexing your cat in your state/territory.
Remember that some commonly found plants, such as lilies, are toxic to cats. It is important that you familiarise yourself with these and remove them from your garden and house and avoid having any in your cat’s environment, including in floral arrangements.
Keeping your kitten safe at home
Keeping cats contained in an environment that meets their physical and mental needs helps them thrive rather than just survive and strikes the right balance between cat welfare, safety, and longevity, while also safeguarding the welfare and survival of wildlife and reducing community impacts from roaming cats.
Cat containment must be implemented in a way that safeguards cat welfare. Contained cats must be provided with an environment that is optimised to meet the cat’s physical and mental needs, allows and encourages the expression of normal feline behaviours, minimises stress, and promotes good health and welfare (see the RSPCA Australia Safe and Happy Cats guide for more information). Cats should have choice and control in their lives, this includes choice about how or if to interact with the environment, people, animals, and objects in it.
Laws for cat owners
It is essential to know what the laws are particularly regarding registration, microchipping and desexing. Each state/territory and council have their own laws, and these may change over time, so it is important to keep up to date. Check with your local council regarding any laws relating to keeping a pet cat.
