Kitten Care

When you first bring home a kitten, and throughout the process of fostering, it's a good idea to examine her general health.

Visual cues will help you determine if a kitten is male or female. Knowing the sex doesn't make any difference in how you raise them, and only determines whether the kitten will eventually need to be spayed or to be neutered.

Monitoring weight is an absolutely essential part of orphan kitten care.

When a kitten is without a mother, it's up to us to lend a hand. Bottle feeding is an essential skill for any kitten rescuer, and Kitten Lady makes it easy to learn with this step-by-step tutorial.

Bottle feeding is the standard method for feeding orphaned kittens, but if you're having difficulty feeding a kitten under 2 weeks old, you may want to consider switching from a bottle to a syringe.

Weaning is the fun, messy adventure of helping a kitten transition from nursing (or bottle feeding) to eating solid food on her own!

By the age of 7-8 weeks, most kittens will be fully weaned. However, these kittens still have special needs around meal time and it's important for rescuers and kitten parents to exercise proper feeding even with kittens who are weaned.

Young kittens don't pee and poop on their own; mama cats stimulate them to go to the bathroom by licking them. If you're raising an orphan, you'll need to help them by stimulating them at each feeding.

Kittens naturally understand the litter box and will be drawn to use it as long as you provide them the proper encouragement. Here's what you need to know about helping get kittens on the right path.

If you're caring for kittens who have diarrhea, please take it seriously. Loose, liquid stool is not normal for kittens and should be addressed within the day.

What should you do if a kitten is all stopped up and just won’t poop? Constipation can occur in kittens for many reasons, so you’ll want to determine the cause while also taking measures to alleviate their discomfort and help them pass stool.

Let’s talk about what scalding is, how to avoid it, and what to do when it occurs.

When you bring home a new foster kitten, it’s natural to want to introduce them to other animals in your home right away. But not so fast! There’s an important step that can protect everyone involved: quarantine.

If you're caring for kittens, there are a few routine veterinary needs that you should know about.

Fleas are small parasitic bugs that seek a host animal, such as a kitten, and can cause severe itching, discomfort, and anemia.

Eye infections are common in kittens, but with the right care they can recover.

Kitten Lady shares helpful strategies for helping kittens survive pneumonia.

If a kitten is scratching at her ears, or shaking her head from side to side, it's possible that the kitten has ear mites. Learn more about how to recognize and treat ear mites.

GI parasites are a very common ailment in kittens, and should be combatted through standard preventative measures and proactive treatment as needed.

Swimmer syndrome is a congenital condition that can occur in young kittens, causing the legs (typically the hind limbs) to splay laterally.

Cats are a predator species, so it’s perfectly normal for kittens to express their natural instinct to attack, chomp, and gnaw. Beginning around 4 weeks of age, kittens will start visually track objects that look like prey, and practice their pounce.

Check out these tips for working with kittens who have yet to be socialized by humans.

You know how wonderful your foster kittens are—but now you have to communicate that to potential adopters!

Lean how to take photos of your adoptable kittens with your cell phone.

If you’re fostering on your own without the support of a program, you’ll need to take on the role of adoption counselor yourself.