When you come here to the Animal Hospital of Statesville, you will get lots of education. We talk about how to care for your kitten. We talk about the first set of vaccines and deworming that there they are going to get. They can carry or have intestinal parasites that can be contagious to you and me, so we educate on that. And your kitten's going to receive a complete physical exam, and we make sure you know how to take care of them at home. We’ll ensure you have a proper carrier and have them set up and ready to go in that.

If the kitten is with Mom, then we wouldn't necessarily recommend that until they're closer to about six to eight weeks—at the age of weaning. If they are abandoned and not with Mom, we would recommend bringing them in right away. That way, we can evaluate them and see what their needs might be since their mom's not providing them.

Fading kitten syndrome is where a kitten is born and looks healthy and fine, but the kitten starts to decline over the next few weeks. The kitten becomes sick even to the point of death. The best way to prevent that would be to make sure Mom is as healthy as she can be before giving birth to pass that healthy immune system along to her kitten and any antibodies that she might have from appropriate vaccines.

Signs of a healthy kitten would be a kitten that's interactive, playful, eating and drinking well, and having regular bowel movements. You might not notice those things right off. You want to ensure they have energy, and they're interactive, and you don't see any obvious discharge, runny nose, sneezing, or other things like that.

If they're with their mom, again, the mom's going to do most of that, as we talked about with puppy care. Ensure that Mom has a good bed or safe area to be with them secluded, and not having to worry about any other animals coming around and having to be stressed about that. And if the kitten is not with Mom, depending on the time of year, you may want to have them in a little box or give them a blanket or something like that in there where they can be safe and secure.

If it's with its mom and it's a newborn kitten, I would encourage you not to—at least not to do a lot of handling. Because those first hours and days are a time where they bond. The problem would be that mom could decide that the kitten doesn't smell like her, or she doesn't recognize it if your scent or smell is on it, and so she may reject it. That would be one concern. And the other would be just safe handling. They're like babies. Be careful that you're not rough or mishandling them so that they could be injured or hurt.