Kitten Care

 Vaccinations

To provide your kitten with the best protection against viral diseases, in particular Cat Flu, your kitten should have 3 vaccinations, one month apart, beginning at 6 weeks of age.  After this initial course of vaccinations, a booster vaccination is required once a year to ensure continued protection.

Desexing

If you are not planning on breeding, we recommend that all dogs and cats are desexed.  Desexing can be carried out from 4 months of age, or from one kg body weight.  Desexing for males involves surgical removal of the testes, whereas in the females, the ovaries and uterus are removed.  All animals are under an anaesthetic and receive pain relief during these procedures. 

The benefits of desexing include:

Diet

Feeding a high quality diet such as Eukanuba, Hills or Iams is the simplest way to ensure that your kitten remains bright and healthy.  These foods are formulated to include all of the protein, energy and nutrients required for growth.  Often breeders will recommend a variety of supplements, however these are generally not required once the transition to a good quality balanced kitten diet has occurred.  Always remember to change your kitten’s diet slowly, over a 2-3 day period, to enable them to get used to new food.

Pet Insurance

We recommend that you consider purchasing pet insurance for your new pet, to assist with unexpected veterinary bills.

Microchipping

The best way to ensure that your lost pet will make it home, is with a microchip.  Pet tags on collars are a good start, but often when an animal goes missing, the collar does too!  Microchipping can be done at any time, for example during one of your cat’s vaccination appointments or at desexing.  The chip is implanted using a needle, and is smaller than a grain of rice.

Flea control

Flea treatment should be carried out monthly, throughout the year.  Fleas will begin to lay eggs which contaminate your cat’s environment within 24 hours of being on the cat, so by the time you notice fleas on your pet, you may already have a build-up of flea eggs in the environment! (Bedding, carpet, garden etc).  Environmental flea problems are more difficult to eradicate, so prevention is much better than cure!
We recommend:

Worming

Kittens should be wormed every 2 weeks up until the age of 12 weeks, then monthly until about 6 months of age, with an all-wormer tablet or paste, available at Springfield District Vets. These ‘all-wormer’ preparations kill worms that may be present in the intestines, including roundworm, hookworm, whipworm and some tapeworms.  If your kitten or cat develops an interest for hunting insects or lizards, a higher dose of tapeworm medication may be required as they can pick up a different tapeworm called ‘spirometra’.  Please advise our staff if your cat is a hunter!
After 6 months of age, kittens can then be wormed every 3 months, depending on the product you choose to use for worming.

We recommend:

Also see New Kitten Checklist

//