Beyond Know How

The mother cat has a difficult, involved job when it comes to taking care of newborn kittens.  Unfortunately, sometimes you will find yourself in need of finding a surrogate cat mother to do the job instead.

A surrogate cat mother is a person who takes care of newborn kittens when the mother cat is deceased, gone, or otherwise unavailable.  It can be a big job for a child to take on, but an older child should be able to manage it with some adult supervision.  After all, it is a little more involved than simply cuddling and petting and playing with the kittens.  They need to be fed their formula in the proper amount, bathed, and very lightly disciplined.  It’s a big job, but someone needs to do it.

This may come as a surprise but cats and kittens can get allergies just like you and me. When you think of cats the furthest thing from your mind, as far as feline ailments go, is kitten allergies. Frankly, I was completely unaware that kittens could even get allergies until one day last week when my 4 month only tabby Betsy’s eye began to look a bit odd. Its had to explain but they looked glazed over, almost like a person’s eyes due when they have a high fever.

I decided I wasn’t going to take any chances and took my kitten to the vet the very next day. It took the veterinarian all of five minutes to make a diagnosis. “Kitten allergies”, he said. Apparently this was more common than I thought. Feeling a bit relieved because at this point Betsy’s eyes weren’t just looking glazed over but a bit swollen.  When I asked the vet what type of medication the cat would need, thinking some special cat pill or something. He told me I could pick up some children’s Benadryl. Can you believe it my kitten is on a child’s allergy medication.