new kitten - need advice

[gingerpig]

a well meaning friend has given me a kitten. he's tiny and adorable. the thing is I think he's only about 6 weeks old, poor thing, so a bit young to be away from his mum.

I've already got a male cat, neutered, about 3 years old. he goes out during the day and stays in at night. I'm a bit worried how the two of them are going to get along. the new kitty is soooo tiny and I'm worried my cat will go ballistic when he sees him. my cat did have a brother until about 6 months ago when he was hit by a car and died.

can anyone give me some advice on what such a tiny kitten needs at the moment? he's in another room with the door shut and I've given him some wet kitten food. he seems to be litter trained and weaned, but pretty timid and bewildered.

also how do I go about integrating the two?

TIA

It's difficult but I wouldn't leave them one for now. 6 weeks is very young. Hopefully someone else with more experience will be along soon. I think you have to socialise them in stages, can be very stressful for them both but obviously depends on the cats. Good luck. Sorry to hear about your car, we lost one in similar circumstances. Heartbroken :(

Wouldn't leave them alone, that should say.

if hes timid give him lots of human contact carry him around (in your bra if neccesary hearbeat comforts them),

at night when your other cat is in put him in a carrier with the door shut lots of soft blankets and a soft toy like a teddy for him to cuddle up to,

small meals frequently his tummy is about the size of your thumbnail so think this size meals, at six weeks he should eat about half to one pouch a day and good kitten biscuits down for him to graze on,

get some dangly toys like a fish on a stick playing with this he will forget hes timid and should bring out his character,

when hes in the carrier let your big boy have a look at him for short periods and when you are in bring the kitten into the main room with you this will get him used to noises like the telly and people being around

i have two hooligan foster kittens at the moment one is large and his brother is tiny and my big cats are not impressed they think the kits are lunch on legs but after the first couple of days are now pretty much ignoring them

thank you eclectricshock and issey, you've no idea how much I appreciate having someone to talk to about this. I'm really feeling pretty overwhelmed by this whole situation (my friend gave the kitty to me a 'surprise' - WTF??).

a quick question for you. I work full time - the kitten is currently in the bathroom with kitten food/water/litter tray. when i left he was munching his wet food, but I'm not going to be there to make sure he's fed often and regularly. Will this be a problem for him? I also left some biscuits for him.

I showed him to my big cat - the kitten was in my arms. My cat eyeballed him with a very unimpressed expression, and wouldnt take his eyes off him, running after me etc. I put kitty back in the bathroom and then my cat sat outside the door for a while. Actually the thing that is playing on my mind most is - my cat usually sleeps downstairs. I went down this morning and he'd done a poo on the kitchen floor. He never does this. Admittedly I'd given his litter tray to the kitty but he never usually goes overnight as he's outside all day. And then he didnt want to go outside but just followed my around (until i booted him out) So now I'm worried that this is stress. He's quite an insecure cat at the best of times..

OH GOD. I'm still not convinced tbh.

dont worry about the kitten eating if you leave him with a pouch of kitten food and biscuits in the morning cats graze in little bits all day so he will eat when hes hungry, the other cat yes hes showing his territory marking but being as its in the kitchen he is showing this is his territory so get another litter tray for him as they should have one each for now and he should go back to using the one in the kitchen, him following you round is just curiosity mine have stalked the foster kits and when the kits turn round and show interest in them they all turn into big woosie cats and back off

Always make sure the loo seat is down. We nearly had a kitten drown like that.

I think coming home to a drowned kitten in the loo would traumatise me forever...omg the thought!

so, I bought another litter tray and cleaned out/scrubbed the one my big cat normally has and reinstalled that for him. I did keg him have a sniff of the kittens offerings first though - not sure if that was the right thing to do. I hope he doesn't keep feeling the need to mark his territory in the flat.

I then put the kitten in the cat carrier and let my big cat find him. I didn't put him in the room where he eats/sleeps, thought that might be a bit hard on him. well my cat looked upon the squeaky, squirmy ball of fluff with utter disgust/amazement/horror.. and then zoomed off downstairs. I put the kitten back in the bathroom and gave my big cat lots of food and rubs.

not sure the kitten even registered there was another cat around.

so how does that sound? i guess I'll just keep doing this for a bit? any suggestions?

We got 6 week old kittens last week and our 8yr old boy cat is pretending they aren't there...then looks at them in disgust/horror when he comes down for his food and sees them. They've got their own spaces but the kittens are slowly exploring the house and working their way up to his space so no idea what will happen - so far he just runs away from them when they go up to investigate.

The kittens have been well socialised which is really helping them - our boy cat was a 6week old neglected kitten when we got him and has always been a bit loopy.
We have a feliway diffuser for big cat as he's had big stress issues in the past.