Remind me about kittens.

[MustardScreams]

I’ve always had adult cats, but am planning on adopting 2 kittens so I can experience the madness of babies.

I wfh 50% of the week, and the other days I can pop home in the middle of the day if needed.

Food wise I’m thinking Meowing Heads or Applaws. Mix of wet and dry? How many times a day do they eat?

Confined to one room? I can pop a stairgate in the kitchen and keep them either in there or in the dining room. Do you let kittens sleep in your room?

Give me all your tips!

[WeAreAllAdults]

To keep their teeth in tip top condition for many years to come take wet food away by early evening and give them a small amount of biscuits before bed. The wet food is more likely to stick to their teeth and cause plaque but the biscuits can help clean that away. That goes for your adult cats too 🙂

I've literally forgotten everything else about kittens though! Other than being scratched and bitten from head to toe whilst they learnt how to play nicely 😂 Oh! If they bite you and knock out a tooth don't feel guilty (yes, mine did that!) because they lose their baby teeth just like humans.

[RMarieClaire]

Yay kittens!
Start with them in one room. Be prepared for them to hide under something for a long time! We then gradually expanded our cats' living space until they were roaming the house. You might want to start with them in the room you plan to have their litter in, as toilet habits are hard to break, but don't worry if that's not possible.
Also if you can be home with them for the first, say, week, that would be great.
Food wise we gave a mix of wet and biscuits, Iams and Gourmet.
Are the kittens from the same litter?

[MitziK]

Handle them all over multiple times a day, including opening their mouths and tickling between their adorable little toes. One day, you might need to handle them when they have an injury - if they're completely used to you tickling between their toes or checking their bellies,


A) you'll know if they growl that they are genuinely in pain and

B) you're less likely to get shredded/bitten/ripped to shreds in the process

[TailsoftheManyPaws]

Stairgate? Ha! Mine laugh in the face of stairgates (and then stroll straight through between the bars).

Start with exactly the same food that they've been on before and change over slowly, unless you want dodgy tummies for the first week. Preferably use the same cat litter, too.

[HuggedTheRedwoods]

If you decide to let kittens sleep in your room be prepared to wave cheerio to unbroken sleep!

[MustardScreams]

Ah great tips, thanks all!

Not sure if they will be from the same litter, most likely I would think. I’m registered with my local cat rescue and they’re going to let me know when suitable kits come in.

Oh eff about the stairgate! I’m happy for them to have the run of downstairs, but not sure if they will panic at so much space?

The cat rescue feeds the kittens bog standard kitten food, so I’ll get some in and gradually swap over to the good stuff.

[eurochick]

We've had our two kitties for about six weeks now. I'd only ever lived with adult cats before too.

They get one bowl of dry food between them per day -a mix of royal canin kitten food and a breed specific food. Then two cans of wet food between them each morning and evening. We were recommended Applaws kitten or Felix as good as it looks kitten. They polish off the wet food and eat varying amounts of the dry.

We change the litter tray twice a week and scoop daily. The advice is usually to have multiple trays for multiple cats but the breeder said they would be fine with one and they are.

Plenty of toys. A laser pointer is a big hit.

We haven't had great success in socialising ours - I think because there are two of them they prefer to play with each other rather than us. They spend hours chasing each other around the house and pouncing on one another. I would like them to be lap cats but it's not looking likely.

Ps obligatory photos included.

[MustardScreams]

Oh GOD @eurochick they are stunning!!! Fancy lending them to me for some practice? Promise I’ll give them back

[Windydaysuponus]

The most important item is a camera!!
A huge box with holes cut out kept our 2 amused for weeks! Saved my curtains etc I am sure!!