Week 1: Kittens' first week!

Kitten Watch 2024: Caramel and her sweet kittens

It's Week 1, and Caramel is already such a wonderful mum! She has been carefully looking after her four kittens: Cinnamon, Coban, Chai and Costa, and getting to know them in the safety of her maternity pen. Here they all are feeding and snuggling with Caramel, while she gets some well-deserved comfort on her soft bed.

Caramel and kittens enjoying their first week together.

All kittens are born with their eyes closed and ears folded. This means they can't see or hear anything, and rely on their mother completely. This shows just how vulnerable newborn kittens are, and how important it is that they stay with mum as they are growing. Around seven days of age, the kittens' ears can be seen unfolding, but most kittens' eyes are still closed.

The kittens have closed eyes, and ears are starting to uncurl.

By one week of age, the kittens can hold their heads up, and they crawl around to move - like when looking for a place to suckle. Did you know? Kittens need to feed every two to three hours, and in between feeds the kittens can often be seen sleeping - getting their energy ready for the next few weeks of important changes! Kittens get all of their nutrition from their mother in the milk, until they are ready to transition to solid foods at around four weeks of age. You can read more about kittens and feeding on our kitten advice pages here.

Some sleeping, some feeding, Caramel watching over them.

Over the next few weeks, we will follow the kittens' progress week by week on this blog, right up until they and their mum are ready to go to their forever homes. It's great to have you here sharing in their journey!

 

Please note, these blog posts are not in real time, the kittens are a few weeks old at the time of writing. However, we hope you enjoy following along with their weekly development from day one. You will get to see how they grow, change and blossom into lovely young cats with the support of their amazing mum, Caramel, and our dedicated team of cat care staff and volunteers here at Wales Cat Centre.

 

If you would like to donate towards the care for our cats, including those like Caramel and her kittens, you can do so on our website here. Anything you can give, big or small, can really make a difference. Thank you for being here for cats 💜

 

See you next week for Kitten Watch: Week 2! 🐾