Caring for Newborn Kittens

Series Summary

A pet cat is much more than just an animal. Our pets are our loved ones, our friends and sometimes our children. For almost a thousand years, people have been drawn to cats for their affectionate and dignified nature, companionship and keen hunting skills. Properly caring for cats is important, especially for young kittens, since we have domesticated these animals from the wild and taught them to expect to have their needs met by humans. In order for the pet-human relationship to work, we have to do our part. In this free video series on kitten care, a veterinarian explains how to care for newborn kittens. Get information on how to help a mother cat deliver kittens and learn about what happens after the kittens are born. Find out what to feed orphan kittens and how to handle newborn kittens. Learn about weaning kittens and when kittens can be taken from their mothers. Kittens are adorable creatures that require a certain amount of care and comfort to survive, so learn the basics from an experienced vet in this free video series.

Video Transcript

"Mother cat is going to take care of a newborn kitten, typically, not always. It's going to be a natural process. After the newborn kitten is born, the queen is going to clean off the amniotic sack, the umbilical cord, and that newborn kitten is going to start nursing pretty soon. What, a lot of times, we're dealing with is how to care for orphaned newborn kittens. Check with your veterinary clinic. They can guide you through this very, very well. This happens a lot, unfortunately. The first thing to think about is keeping them warm, not over handling them too much, and obviously the biggest thing is going to be nutrition. Nutrition is usually based around something like KMR, which is kitten milk replacer. Check with your veterinary clinic obviously, like I said, as far as guiding on how much to feed and how often. Newborn kittens require feeding quite often. Anywhere from two to four hours typically, for the first couple weeks. You generally use a small little milk bottle that they can be feed through. To replace or basically act like the queen is still there and feeding them. Just be careful and gentle and check with your veterinary clinic."