Kitten care · 5 min read
Kitten to Cat: What Each Stage Needs
By feline behaviourist Mitali Parekh
From neo-natal to independent adult — the behavioural and physical changes at each stage, and what to do during each one.
The neo-natal stage
The several growth stages from a kitten to a cat are marked with behavioural and physical changes.
The neo-natal stage lasts till 10 days, and a female kitten will open her eyes by now; male kittens take a little longer and start to see the world at 15 days. This lasts for about three weeks.
If you are fostering a kitten, do not wean her off liquid formula before 30 to 35 days — the gut is not ready to process semi-solid or solid food.
The habituation period
From two to three weeks to seven to nine weeks is the habituation period — their senses of sight, touch, hearing, smell and taste are coming alive. Cats have only lived indoors for about 60 years, so they need a little help adapting to the human environment.
Get them used to all the sights, sounds and types of humans — men, women, children. Get them used to being handled by humans as vets would, to the carrier, car rides, and the sounds of the mixie and the washing machine.
Juveniles and the prey drive
At 18 to 20 weeks, they begin to transition into juveniles, and at seven to nine months they start practising hunt behaviour. Before this, the prey drive has not kicked in, so they would not even recognise a pet hamster or mouse as food. They may continue to live with it peacefully, but a new hamster introduced during the prey drive is certainly going to be hunted.
Start playing with them — using toys and not your hands — to develop their muscles and their brain. An enriched environment, with different kinds of surfaces, places to climb, scratch and hide in, and tunnels, all lead to a happy cat.
The window for integrating two cats
By the time they are two years old, cats can't stand each other. So if you want to live with or integrate two cats, this is the window to do it in.
