Need Help/Advice/Information! 4 baby kittens….

Welcome to TDK Chekarn! The pink tags help as there is a lot of information posted. Maybe a bath might help them. Make sure that they stay in a place warm after bathing. You are doing a wonderful job helping these kittens! Check out the tags and know that more help is on the way on Monday!

I don’t have experience with such young kittens but I just wanted to say that you are doing a great job!

will my 15month old cat get used to our new kitten?

That’s very good news about the kitten :D. I would think it would say on the tin how long the formula should last when mixed but I wouldn’t keep it beyond a day. You can start introducing the litter box at three weeks, they probably won’t get the hang of it until around four weeks but you never know. Of course you need to use a little pan, something they can easily hop in and out of. By ‘girls’, I take it you mean human girls. They CAN catch parasites/worms/ringworm/fleas etc from the kittens so a vet trip for the kittens is a good idea for a general check-up. Don’t give the kittens over the counter parasite remedies, they’re much too young for that, only the vet can treat them safely. Your girls won’t catch any diseases or viruses, since cat diseases don’t cross the species barrier to humans. There is something called cat scratch fever (mild and often symptomless, occasionally flu-type symptoms) but as long as your girls’ immune systems are normal, that shouldn’t be a problem, and antibiotics take care of it.

Powdered KMR does seem to cause constipation issues, you should see how many queries we get about it. You could try using the ready-mixed or you could use canned goats’ milk (in the baking aisle at Walmart) or just keep adding a drop or two of vegie oil when a problem crops up. For further info and advice, check out the pink tags ‘orphans’, ‘poop’ and ‘constipation’ and these websites aren’t quite as informative as messybeast but are still good and cover some different things (one of them has a feeding chart). Good luck!

Links to good kitten-raising sites:

http://www.feralcat.com/raising.html

http://feral-kitten-rescue.blogspot.com/2008/10/feral-kitten-how-to-story.html

http://www.kittenrescue.org/pages.php?pageid=15

http://www.fanciers.com/cat-faqs/orphans.shtml

Sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you. Most kittens do have worms and six weeks is a good age to treat them at. If the kittens had fleas, you would see them, and if they had ringworm, you would see scabs and little bald patches –their fur would start falling out. If you make sure your daughters take normal precautions around pets (I would avoid letting the girls kiss them or put their mouths near them until the kits are older and have been checked out, but ordinary petting and stroking is fine, and always get them to wash their hands well after handling the kittens), they should be fine. Even if the girls did, in the worst-case scenario, catch worms, a de-worming tablet would take care of that.

That is a LOT of money. Ring around all your local vets. Most areas have some kind of low-cost vet care, even if just for spaying and neutering, it would be worth contacting your local shelters to ask if they have any info on local low-cost vet care. Also google low-cost vet care for your area. My vet would only charge for one appointment, even if it involved four kittens, especially for just a check-up, unless he had to dose them all or something.