“Congratulations. You got newborn kittens. Aaaa, it is super cute.”
Getting a newborn kitten is just like getting a new baby. You bless with a new, special experience with lots of joy, warmth, and many laughs. Kittens are super fun, cute, adorable, loving, and entertaining. BUT, caring newborn kittens is not easy. The kittens require a lot of attention and care. Kittens care involves amount of hands-on attention from the owner.
The first, two, or three weeks are the most crucial time for your kittens. The kittens should grow rapidly and well. During those weeks of life, you should concern about kittens’ feeding, keeping them warmth, learning how to excrete themselves, and developing their social skills. In some cases, owner only watches the queen cat run their duties as mother. However, there are many kittens have been separated from their mothers ,or their mother rejected them, or cannot produce enough milk. In this case, the owner plays a big role in his kitten growth. If this is your first experience getting newborn kittens, here are 4 safest ways to take care newborn kittens for beginners:
1. Feeding
Before you give care to your kittens, consider your kitten’s age first whether or not the mother still takes care of it, and how healthy your kitten is. If you find your kitten has separated from its mother, you should provide the things its mother kitten usually does such as food, cleaning, and so on.
A newborn kitten needs a lot of nutrition. Newborn kitten should get all of their nutrition from their mother. If its mother is still around its kitten, you should provide food for its mother as well because its mother also needs a lot of nutrition to look after its kittens. On the other hand, if the cat mother is not around, you should provide food for your kittens and feed them regularly.
Feeding newborn kittens can feel like a full-time job, but in the end it’s incredibly rewarding, when your kittens can eat their own diet and find their own home. Newborn kittens need to feed every two to three hours. The type of food you give for the kittens should depend on their age.
- One week old or less kittens: bottle feeding with kitten formula milk every 2-3 hours in amount of 3-4 cc per feeding
- Two weeks old kittens: bottle feeding with kitten formula every 3 hours in amount of 5-6 cc per feeding
- Four weeks old or more kittens: decrease the amount of formula, begin to give them dry kitten food (feed them 4 times per day)
2. Keeping warmth
Keeping your newborn kittens warmth is an essential thing. When kittens are new born, kittens cannot produce their own body heat. Their queen works for maintaining body temperature. When kitten is separated from its queen, you should replace its queen job for maintaining its body temperature. If your kitten has not already had a place to sleep yet, you should provide it. You can create a box or nest with towels or blanket. Make sure the nest should be warm, dry, and away from potential predators. Complete the nest using a normal heating pad, a bottle of warm water, or heated sock filled with uncooked rice. Keep the heating pad at an appropriate temperature as it is so important to ensure the heating pad won’t burn the kittens. Moreover, you should make sure that the kittens can get away from the heat if they become too warm. Check on them often to see if they seem comfortable. You should monitor the nest temperature, keep the kittens warmly nestled for four weeks.
3. Cleaning newborn kitten
A newborn kitten spends its day by sleeping and eating. When they are not sleeping, they are eating. It is exactly right. Your newborn kitten cannot poop on its way. Therefore, you have to make sure that its mother licking it and cleaning her kitten’s bottoms. On the other hand, if she is not doing, you should provide yourself as the surrogate mother for your newborn kitten. Kittens, however, has certain trouble cleaning spots, such as head, the head, the back, and the mother. Usually their mother cleans the kittens these areas, so your job is to take responsible to clean these spots yourself. Remember, you must do this until your kitten help itself.
You can use moistened cloth, or smooth wet cloth to clean newborn kitten’ certain spots, stimulate it to go potty, and introduce your newborn kitten to water and washing. Make sure that the cloth is not rough enough to irritate your newborn kitten. You must do this every two hours or after your newborn kitten had eaten. While awake in its nest, your newborn kitten will interact each other, and their genitals will be stimulated. They will start pee and poop, so you have to change their towels or blanket which is as cover inside the nest twice a day. Wiping it with moistened cloth, or smooth wet cloth is better than a full bath.
For newborn kitten, a full bath is not good one as it is too early to give your newborn kitten a full bath. Just gently wipe from front to back. You can start from kittens’ face and forelegs. Next, move to the back and abdomen, and finish with the hindquarters. Remember, you must avoid the kitten’s eyes, ears, and nose!
4. Early handling
Start by gently holding and stroking your newborn kitten in a day for a few minutes can influence kitten’s friendliness toward animals and people around when your kitten grows up. It is important to start handling them after they are two weeks years old.
- When your kittens are over 3 weeks of age, you can continue handling your kitten every day, so the kitten becomes comfortable and get used to held and picked up. If your kitten shows fearful or unhappy, stop handling and start again latter until your kitten in good mood.
- After 4 weeks of age, you can start introducing your kitten to interactive toys such as stuffed toys or toys they can begin to chase. Don’t give your kitten battery operated toys, it can surprised it.
Those are 4 safest ways to take care newborn kittens for beginners. You do not need to be worry, when your cat has newborn kitten for the first time as you don not know how to handle it. If you have a certain guide, you can be successful cat parent. Just be calm, relax, don’t panic, and stress because of the situation. The more stressed out you become, the more stressed out your cat will become.