Supplies You'll Want to Bring Home with Your New Kitten

KITTEN CAT CARE

Don't be fooled -- as small as kittens are, the number of items you can accumulate in the attempt to keep them safe and happy can fill a small mansion. If you find it overwhelming, don’t fret- check out this checklist of vital cat items to have on hand before kitten comes home and you should be ready to go. Ten-story cat tree is optional.

Toys
Toys for kittens with feathers, crunchy fillings, and catnip are very popular, as are small handheld laser pointers. Try a few different types to see which kind your cat prefers. And don’t forget to get a scratching post or two- scratching is a normal cat behavior , and training your cat to use a post early in life can spare your furniture down the road.

Treats
Treats are highly useful in a variety of situations: distracting kitty at the vet, getting them ready for a nail trim, or even training them for basic tricks (yes, you can train a cat to sit!) You can buy pre-packaged treats, use kitten kibble, or even make your own.

The number one key to treating a cat is to keep the pieces small. It’s easy to overfeed cats when they are so tiny to begin with, so choose your cat treat portions accordingly.

Feeding
Growing cats need a food that is appropriate for their developmental stage. The first six months are particularly important for bone, muscle, and nervous system development, so you want to make sure to choose a kitten food that is right for them.

Cat foods are labeled according to life stage: growth, adult maintenance, and all lifestages . Kittens should be eating a food that is labeled as either a kitten food or an all life stages food (which essentially means it is formulated for the most nutritionally-demanding life stages, which is growth or lactation, and less appropriate for other mature life stages). Your veterinarian is an excellent source of information as to what food will be the best for your cat!

For the complete article on the New Kitten Supplies List, visit petMD!