Community Chat

[shoekitty]

@Shorty2U

Sometimes you have to take a cloth with warm water squeezed out, and massage kitty's butt.. for them to poo.  This simulates the Mom licking them.  That is, if she is not pooing by herself.  Maybe she is older than 4 weeks?  I remembner my first litter boxes for the tiny ones were those aluminum pie plates.!  Wow! I can't even remember my Sushi that small!  His poo is as big as a pie plate now, LOL!

[Shorty2U]

Thank you for the wonderful advice and I will try it all and ask the vet too. I was thinking as yous said, the kitten is pretty young to know to go in the box. I might add its runny when the kitten goes due to the formula. Well this will sure keep me busy which is a good thing since i am home all day. Whats not to love about taking care of a kitten? :-) Thank you all again and I will check back again and call our vet to make the appt. 1st thing tomorrow.

PS I forgot to answer the above. Yes we will keep her indoors. We never let our cats out. (I had a cat when i was a kid and the cat would go out and he got hit by a car) So, I wouldnt trust letting any cats out doors.

[nrm]

Hi Shorty, so happy to hear that you adopted the little baby! You're a dear. My son adopted a kitten two years ago and he was too tiny to get into the litter box by himself so my son would pick him up and help him in. It didn't take long for him to go to the box by himself. The first thing we always did with our cats was take them to our vet for a check up and shots if needed. The other posters gave you great advice. 

Have fun with the new baby and keep us posted. 😄

[Desertdi]

Congratulations on your new "baby"   !!!!!!

[mstyrion 1]

congratulations, Shorty.  I have a Tuxedo cat too and they are wonderful.

You've received a lot of good advice. I agree with the posters whosaid the mama cat stimulates young babies to go before 6 weeks old.

 I also remember when I was training my two for the litterbox, I used an aluminum cookie sheet instead of a regular litter box because they were too tiny to crawl over a high edge. They were born outside and when I decided to make them all house cats, I brought them in at about4 weeks old.

I confined mine to a bathroom with the door cracked open so mama could get in and nurse them. I didn't want them having the run of the house when they were that small. When they were old enough to figure out how to get out of the bathroom, I figured they were old enough to be out and about in the house.  It was also a quiet place for mama to nurse and take care of them.

There were a few accidents along the way, but they quickly figured out the litterbox. 

Good luck!

[hckynutjohn]

@Shorty2U

Always love hearing about people like yourself and your husband bringing in a kitten, especially one that all alone in our big world. A BIG thank you to both of you for your kindness to this little kitten.

Cruiser is our Tuxedo guy. He was born outside our home with 7 litter mates. We made sure the mother was fed well as she also was born outside our home with 5 litter mates.

I was in the process of humanely trapping all 6 of them, but! Cruiser's mama was too smart for her own good. We had trapped the other 5, taken them to our vet and had them "fixed". By the time we finally got her trapped and took her to our vet? She was already going to become a mama.

She gad the 8 kittens outside our home, 1 of which was Cruiser, and we brought in mama and our Tux, Cruiser. We adopted out all of the other kittens with the help of our vet.

I really can't anything to what the other posters have suggested about litter box training. What I will express is this. Since you already have 2 cats, make sure your vet runs a Feline Leukemia Test on the tuxedo.

We have a female that showed up at our door as a kitten, probably 7 weeks old. As soon as we thought she was old enough, we took her to our vet to be spayed. At that time we already had 10 indoor only felines.

During a less than 6 week period, we lost our 3 oldest ones. We decided to bring her inside with our 7 remaining furry ones. So we took her again to our vet to have the Feline Leukemia Test done. She unfortunately tested Positive for that Leukemia, so we could not risk bringing her in to join us. She stays close to home and we take good care of her. 

Just wanted to pass that info along since you have 2 other indoor furry ones. It is a very important test for the safety of your 2 other cats.

Thank you again for taking in this homeless little baby.

hckynut(john)

[60sgirl]

as others have said, mama cat takes care of all their meeses when they are that young, in the shelters when mamas give birth they stay in the cage with babies and only mom goes in the litter box. You clean the cages and wonder where is all the baby poo? Well, now you know. When they begin walking around the cage they go and sit in the litter and play in it and sometimes try to eat it, they eventually see mama use it properly and then they do too.

This young without the mama around, that has to be you. Put baby in the box throughout the day and stimulate the bottom with a wet wipe until he goes. Over time, baby will understand.

I could tell you how to sex it, but not here! just google how to sex a kitten and there are tons of youtube videos on that. 

[jaxs mom]

I've never had an orphan kitten that young, I have taken in a mom with kittens and those kittens took readily to the box. My only suggestion is make sure you are using non clumping littler, because clumping litter is dangerous for kittens if they ingest it. Even more so if the kitten is long haired as clumping litter sticks to longer fur more easily. 

[Burnsite]

Shorty, A big thanks for taking on that tiny kitten.  As you know, she will pay you back a thousand-fold with affection and entertainment.  Kitten-watching is more fun than TV!

If she is still using paper in her box, this might not be a practical suggestion, but there is an (expensive) litter that I use to attract Claire (who when stressed goes out of the box) to the cat-litter area.   It is called "Cat Attract."  I sprinkle it over their "World's Best."  The texture of the Cat Attract is not as granular and hard.  Claire had a hard time when I was sick around 7-8  years ago--and I started using Cat Attract then.  No incidents since then. 

Often my cats poop just after their morning feeding.  After she has her formula, massage her bottom gently and she may pass her stool.  You can do this while in the cat box area. 

Tuxedos, every one I've known, anyway, have very genial, sweet personalities.

[KingstonsMom]

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@hckynutjohn wrote:

@Shorty2U

Always love hearing about people like yourself and your husband bringing in a kitten, especially one that all alone in our big world. A BIG thank you to both of you for your kindness to this little kitten.

Cruiser is our Tuxedo guy. He was born outside our home with 7 litter mates. We made sure the mother was fed well as she also was born outside our home with 5 litter mates.

I was in the process of humanely trapping all 6 of them, but! Cruiser's mama was too smart for her own good. We had trapped the other 5, taken them to our vet and had them "fixed". By the time we finally got her trapped and took her to our vet? She was already going to become a mama.

She gad the 8 kittens outside our home, 1 of which was Cruiser, and we brought in mama and our Tux, Cruiser. We adopted out all of the other kittens with the help of our vet.

I really can't anything to what the other posters have suggested about litter box training. What I will express is this. Since you already have 2 cats, make sure your vet runs a Feline Leukemia Test on the tuxedo.

We have a female that showed up at our door as a kitten, probably 7 weeks old. As soon as we thought she was old enough, we took her to our vet to be spayed. At that time we already had 10 indoor only felines.

During a less than 6 week period, we lost our 3 oldest ones. We decided to bring her inside with our 7 remaining furry ones. So we took her again to our vet to have the Feline Leukemia Test done. She unfortunately tested Positive for that Leukemia, so we could not risk bringing her in to join us. She stays close to home and we take good care of her. 

Just wanted to pass that info along since you have 2 other indoor furry ones. It is a very important test for the safety of your 2 other cats.

Thank you again for taking in this homeless little baby.

hckynut(john)

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@hckynutjohn

Good point, John!

My DD takes care of a feral colony at her home and over time has brought 8 abandoned kittens into the home, but if it's not during vet office hours, she keeps any newcomer isolated until a feline leukemia test can be one, to protect the other cats.

Unfortunately, it can be very prevalent in feral colonies, since it spreads so easily.

She has had to humanely euthanize quite a few of the outdoor ferals over the years, when their health deteriorated so badly that they were suffering, crying her heart out for each one.