|
For
the first 2 weeks, you should leave mother and kittens
alone and let nature take its course. Cats are great
mothers, and your pet should be no exception. After
about 2 weeks, you can begin playing with the kittens.
This is a good practice, since it will acclimate the
kittens to human contact and reduce the likelihood that
they will grow into nervous, defensive or aggressive
cats as adults.
After about 3 or 4 weeks, the weaning process will
begin, and you can offer small amounts of kitten foods
to them, even though they will still be nursing from the
mother. At this time the kittens will also be learning
important lessons from their mother; not the least of
which will be how to use a litter box. So, it’s
important that you make a box with low, easy-to-scale
sides available to the kittens.
At
about 6 weeks of age, the kittens will be ready to stop
weaning and go on a kitten food diet. They should
continue to eat kitten food until their first birthday,
when they’re switched to an adult formula.
As
part of your role in rearing the kittens, you should
teach them how to play with people. This means
discouraging them from regarding human fingers and
ankles as playthings to be pounced upon. To do this, you
should show the kittens how to play with cat toys like
wands with feathery objects at your ends.
 |
