Orphan cats

It is not easy to raise kittens with just some days of life, but what a satisfaction it is if you succeed!

Lodging: Put the box or the basket in a warm and safe place and cover it with kitchen paper. Try to give them the necessary warming that goes between 25 and 30ºC. On the first weeks try with a hot water cushion or an infrared lamp; then, till the sixth week, reduce the heat to a room temperature of 20º C.

Nourishment: Sometimes the whelp is to weak to suck from a nursing bottle. In this case one can give them the milk through a dropper or with a syringe (without needle that is). Before using any of these objects one must sterilize them. Heat the milk at 38ºC (Try it with lips), put the kitten over one's laps and slide the nipple to its mouth. Take the kitten by the neck. When it finishes, massage gently his stomach with a finger, to stimulate digestion. Urine and feces are wiped with a humid cotton ball. Then one dries and rubs the anal zone with Vaseline.

Whelp milk: cows milk, since it lacks enough fat and is rich on albumen it is not good enough for the whelps, one has to look for other alternatives.

• Special powder milk for whelps, on sale in specialized stores, one has to mix it with water following instructions on the label.
• Pulverized baby milk. When mixing one adds double quantity of powder than for a child.
• Condensed milk at 10% must be watered

Attention: first boil water for a while

Weaning: these kittens have to adapt themselves to solid foods starting the third week of age. At first, mix with bottled food, a little spoon of pap, and some meat juice or veal broth. Little by little increase solid food serving until the eighth week, time in which normal cats wean.

Cats and mice: In the litters box one can experience all that a cat will need to be a good hunter. One can see the future ways of behavior on whelps that can hardly stand by themselves. The furtive advance, the leap over the prey, the pursuit, capture, bites and, of course, the rolling with each movement. A mother that can go outside whenever it pleases shows the whelps how to encounter a mouse by stages. First she acquaints whelps with dead rodents. Then she brings a live mouse badly hurt and kills it and eats it before their eyes. In the last stage, she brings a healthy live mouse for the most daring of its kittens to give the last grace bite, a decisive step in their learning process.

House cats that cannot practice these exercises, find themselves a little slow on their first real attempt. But they have learned the foundations because the concealment, the leap, the mortal shake and the carrying are practiced with yarns of wool, balls, paper balls and with the tail of the mother.