foundkitten

When you find a kitten…

under your porch, under your car,

in a bush, under your house,

they will be everywhere soon...

What Do You Do?

How big is the kitten? If it can fit in your hand, are its eye’s closed? A kitten opens it’s eyes between 9 and 14 days old. These babies need their mom. Leave it where you find it, but keep a close watch for an hour or two to see if mom comes back for it. If mom doesn’t come back, pick it up very gently. This infant needs warmth. Put some warm water in an empty water bottle and lay it next to the infant and warm him up. He needs special kitten milk (H.A.L.O. uses KMR). You can buy the kitten formula and a bottle at the local pet store. To put a hole in the nipple light a match under a thick needle and push through the nipple. Leave it there till it cools. You may need to repeat this process two to three times. The smaller the infant the more often it needs to be fed, starting with every two hours. Infants this small also need you to wipe their bottoms to stimulate them to go potty. Keep them in an small enclosed place and you will see when they start going on their own. First they will use the newspaper, then the litter box. As soon as their bedding is clean you can stop wiping them. Never give it human milk, they will get diarrhea. They will need kitten formula until they are about 4 to 5 weeks and start eating kitten food on their own.

OK, so it’s not an infant. Does it have teeth? At one month they have a bunch of little teeth, they may need formula or if it eats on it’s own the you can feed it kitten food. At two months old they are very playful and weigh about two pounds. Put a napkin on your kitchen scale and weigh them. Generally it’s one pound, one month old. Two pounds, two months old and so on. They should always have a litter box available and will start using it at about one month old. So now you know how old they are… what do you do with them? Love them. In order for anyone to want one they must be sweet! During kitten season (spring) H.A.L.O., the shelters and the other rescue groups get engulfed with kittens. There are way more kittens than there are homes for them. Do the world a favor and get them spayed or neutered. They are generally adoptable at two months and unfortunately the smaller, the cuter, the faster they get adopted.

Good Luck!