What you should know about your kitten

Your Healthy Kitten

             Few things in life are as satisfying as the loving companionship a new pet can provide.  Taking the time to learn all you can about what’s best for your pet is the first important step toward a long, rewarding and healthy relationship.  Most importantly, it shows your commitment to be a responsible pet owner. 

At no time is this relationship more interesting, challenging and rewarding than during the first year of your cat’s life.  It is a time when your cat will experience rapid behavioral, physical, and physiological changes.  From age 3 to 12 weeks, your new friend will begin to assume adult characteristics and learn to respond to its environment.  It is the first time your kitten is capable of learning specific lessons and a is perfect time to establish good litter box habits, control furniture clawing and urine spraying, and to introduce other household pets. Learning is easy for kittens at this age and with positive reinforcement, their lessons will quickly be committed to memory.

Many other changes occur as your kitten grows.  For instance, the antibodies received from its mother to help protect against disease are soon replaced by the kitten’s own antibodies, antibodies which only develop if the kitten is properly vaccinated.  For the immune system to develop correctly, and for proper grown and development of muscles, bones and internal organs, proper nutrition and veterinary care are required.

            Veterinary care should begin as soon as you get your new kitten.  During your first appointment, the veterinary health care team will plan a management program to promote wellness throughout your kitten’s life, and to identify and modify any risks to its health.  Your veterinarian will be able to discuss the risk factors for your kitten based on information that you provide, the results of physical examinations and diagnostic studies, and on basic knowledge of disorders that commonly affect kittens of the same age, breed and sex.  Your role is just as important.  In fact, each member of the family needs to follow your veterinarian’s advice every day to keep your kitten in good health.

            Although your veterinarian can identify any risk factors that are unique to your kitten, the risks listed here can affect most or all kittens.  What you do at home, along with the help of your veterinary healthcare team will preserve your kitten’s wellness and create the potential for a long, healthy life.

1. Infectious diseases are a serious threat to the health of your kitten.  Although most kittens are born with antibodies against certain diseases or receive them in their mother’s milk, these antibodies disappear after a few weeks.  Unless a kitten is protected by vaccinations, it will be susceptible to various infectious diseases.  Upper respiratory disease, feline panleukopenia (distemper), rabies, and feline leukemia are some common examples.  Several of theses diseases can be fatal.  To reduce the risk of infectious diseases, follow your veterinary healthcare team’s advice for vaccinations.
   
2. Internal parasites often cause digestive disease in young cats.  Some common feline parasites are roundworms, hookworms, Giardia, coccidia, and tapeworms.  These parasites can debilitate your kitten, causing diarrhea, a pot belly and vomiting.  Your veterinarian can advise you about control and prevention of internal parasites.
   
3. External parasites in kittens include fleas, ear mites, and certain fungi which cause “ringworm” (even though it isn’t a worm at all).  As you groom your kitten, carefully check its skin for evidence of parasite infestation.  Fleas often cause skin disease marked by scratching, hair loss, and small raised crusts on your cat’s skin.  Finding fleas, flea debris, (flea feces, which looks like black pepper), or tapeworm segments (shaped like dried rice grains or cucumber seeds) on your pet’s coat are signs of flea infestation. Mites are microscopic and they cause ear disease and skin irritation.  Ringworm fungus causes a circular patch of hair loss almost anywhere on the body.. Your veterinarian can diagnose skin disease and prescribe safe insecticides and fungicides to rid your kitten’s body of external parasites and reduce the number in the environment.   Your veterinarian also has brochures that will help you understand and control the life cycle of these parasites.
   
4. Grooming is an important part of your pet’s health.  A poorly groomed coat is a risk factor for external parasites and skin problems.  Because cats like to groom themselves by licking, loose hair also contributes to hairball formation.  Just a few minutes each day will reduce the risks before hairballs become serious.  Your pet will love the extra attention.
   
5. Neutering at an early age prevents unwanted pregnancies and protects your pet against tumors of the reproductive organs.  Early neutering also improves behavior by reducing roaming, urine marking, and aggression between male animals.  Because neutered pets generally live longer than non-neutered pets, failing to neuter is an important risk factor than can greatly affect the quality and length of your pet’s life.
   
6. Environmental conditions can increase or decrease your kitten’s health risks.  Outdoor animals not properly socialized to their environments tend to disregard yard boundaries and the hazards of motor vehicles.  They also are exposed to extreme weather conditions, infectious disease, internal and external parasites, accidental poisoning from either plants or chemicals, and injury from people or  from other animals.
   
7. Inappropriate behavior is an important risk factor because it produces undesirable pets and is the primary reason for euthanasia of pets.  Look to your veterinary health care team to help solve your kitten’s behavioral problems before they become unmanageable. 

Throughout your pet’s life, your pet should be fed a nutritionally balanced, highly digestible food specifically formulated for its age and life style.  Feeding kittens poor-quality foods of low digestibility may slow their growth rate, cause poor muscle and bone development, and decrease resistance to infectious disease.  Table scraps and some pet foods may also contain excesses of certain nutrients that could harm your pet over time.

            Proper nutrition, fed in appropriated quantities, is crucial to the healthy development of your kitten.  Excessive amounts of dietary minerals and foods that produce an abnormal urine pH may increase the risk of urinary tract disease.  Never supplement a good kitten food with table scraps or other food.  Meat, fish, kidney and liver supplements can create dietary imbalances and addiction to the wrong types of food.  Long-term feeding of excess fats, proteins, and calories contribute to severe skeletal disease, organ failure, or diseases such as diabetes.

            The right diet is important at every state of a cat’s life, but optimal nutrition for kittens helps establish a pattern of wellness that will affect its entire life.  Optimal nutrition means providing the right levels – no more and no less – of the nutrients that enable your cat’s vital organ systems to grow, especially the immune and musculoskeletal systems.  This requires the right balance of high-quality proteins, calories, fatty acids, vitamins, minerals, and taurine.  Just as important is the control of nutrient excesses.  Too much calcium and magnesium, for example, can cause signs of urinary tract disease, and too many calories can cause your cat to become overweight.

The veterinarians at Orange Grove Animal Hospital recommend Hill’s Science Diet.  Talk to a member of your pet’s health care team to determine which one is right for your cat. 

Adapted from the Hill’s Pet Nutrition hand out “Your Healthy Kitten”   
©1993 Hill’s Pet Nutrition, Inc.