A few months ago we brought in a new little addition to our home – in the form of a 4 week old kitten
It was early on a Friday morning when I first saw his adorable little face (in a FB post from one of our close friends) and my heart just melted. This is the actual picture of him that I saw for the first time on FB that day –
I immediately posted a comment on the picture of him inquiring if our friends had just purchased a new kitten only to find out that their dog had found him along with his brother in their back yard! And they were looking for a good home for these two little guys!!!
We had been tossing around the idea adopting another cat for a while then. We felt that Murphy needed a companion for the 10 or so hours we are both gone all day at work. So this opportunity to adopt a kitten that really needed a home for free seemed like destiny. And I still believe it was, but be warned destiny has a price tag along with everything else!
In the words of a couple of our other close friends, “Adopting a stray is the most expensive free cat you will ever get.” Not only as the process taxing on our bank account, but also on our minds and spirit.
If you happen to find a kitten say in your backyard or really anywhere outside, they are likely the offspring of a feral cat (pictured below, yikes!) and there are some things you should know.
1. It is more than likely that your kitten’s mama had fleas and that your kitten has em’ too. Living outside your kitten could also have ticks, so make sure to inspect them thoroughly. If they do have fleas it is a total pain in the booty. We could go on and on talking about our trials and tribulations with the fleas but because we have so much to say on the topic we are just going to go ahead and save that for our next post.
2. Your kitten could also have worms, which you guessed it – Ours Did! Although worms are not good for your kitten and can really detriment their growth and development they are much easier to remedy than fleas. Our veterinarian was able to get rid of them with just a couple treatments, phew! Btw, we had our other cat treated for worms as well because he could have easily contracted them from the new little guy and we wanted to play it safe rather than sorry later.
3. Depending on how young the kitten is, making sure they eat can be difficult. I had to feed ours formula out of a little bottle. He was a hearty eater though, so atleast we were lucky on that front. Below is my sister Hannah, feeding him out of his bottle.
4. They will need to be neutered as soon as they are old enough and will also need all of their shots. We expected this, but our other cat was from an animal shelter and they actually took care of all of this for us which was nice because we didn’t have the added expense.
Many trips to the Vet later we are very proud parents of this little guy though!
P.s. his name is Compass ❤
Jeff and Ashley's 