Week 4: More new experiences!

  

Kitten Watch 2024: Caramel and her sweet kittens

By Week 4, the kittens are ready to be introduced to wet food alongside continuing drinking their mother's milk. They also do a lot more walking, playing and even running! Kittens may start to show interest in the litter tray too. This is an exciting age for the kittens as they are getting used to their surroundings and developing strength in their bodies.

Chai testing out the litter tray.

But first, an appreciation of the amazing job that Caramel is doing as a mother for her kittens. After her risky experience during pregnancy where if she had gone unfound, could have resulted in her giving birth on an industrial estate near a very busy road, she is flourishing in the safety of the maternity corridor here at Wales Cat Centre. It is thanks to our dedicated supporters, staff and volunteers that we are able to rescue cats like Caramel from sometimes dangerous situations.

Beautiful Caramel, safe and sound now.

Did you know? A mother cat needs a lot of the right nutrients while she is nursing her kittens, to help keep both her and her kittens strong. It is best to feed the mother a good quality kitten food while she is nursing, as it is more nutrient and energy dense.

Around four weeks of age, the kittens will be ready to start trying wet kitten food too! This usually involves introducing the kittens to kitten milk in a bowl, and slowly mixing in wet kitten food over time. Gradually over the next few weeks, the ratio of food to milk in the bowl will be increased, all while the kittens are continuing to suckle from their mother.

Sweet Cinnamon showing us her lovely blue eyes.

Whoops! Costa doing a roly-poly.

Cuddly Coban - look at his little milk teeth coming through!

Thank you for joining us for Week 4 of Kitten Watch! We will continue to 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.

 

Please note, these blog posts are not in real time, the kittens are a little bit older 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 5! 🐾