I would recommend waiting until they have that last vaccine series with their rabies because that's going to be the way they're going to contract it—from wildlife outside, but hopefully, they never do. But to make sure that they're fully protected, I would wait until they finish out their full vaccine series.

Depending on what vaccine they miss and where they are in their series, we can get them back on track appropriately; it just varies as to what was missed and when.

We tend to see sometimes that they can be a little sore at the injection site. It's not uncommon—if you go to get your annual flu shot or any other vaccine and your arms are a little sore for a day, so we can notice that. Sometimes they can be a little sleepy too. Vaccines drain you of your energy for 24 hours, and those are some things that we can notice, but for the most part, I don't feel like I ever have owners feel like they have a concern.

I recommend it, even if they're indoor only. If you ever bring another cat into your home in the future, or if they were to get outside, or your situation were to change down the road, we want to make sure that we set their immune system up right. I recommend that all kittens get those core vaccines.

So every veterinarian is going to have their own. We have some nationwide guidelines that we use to help us out. But my personal vaccine schedule is to start their first and second visit with their feline distemper vaccine, and then their third and fourth visit; we do that feline distemper, along with their feline leukemia vaccine. We then update them on their rabies vaccine that last visit. We do that because they have to be a certain age to receive rabies, but it's such a great vaccine that they only need to have that vaccine once; it doesn't need to be boostered.

I like to start vaccines between that six and eight weeks of age, as that's kind of the ideal place to start. But that doesn't mean that if you get a cat and they're a little bit older, like three or four months, that we can't start their vaccine series there. Or even if they're eight or nine months, there is a series that we need to go through for any age of kitten. But that perfect window is when they're six to eight weeks of age.

The three core vaccines that I require for kittens are going to be the feline distemper vaccine, which protects against the common viral diseases that we see in cats, along with the feline leukemia vaccine, which prevents leukemia or cancer of the blood. And then the last one is rabies, and that one's required by law. And that's also the one that you and I could potentially catch, so we want to make sure we don't see that.

That's something that you can discuss with your veterinarian. We look at their body condition, their hair coat, things like that to make sure that they're eating enough. There are also some ways that we can calculate their basic energy requirements, and there are some feeding charts and recommendations out there as well. But each kitten is individual, and you can best figure out what they need with your veterinarian.

So that depends. When kittens are younger, they need smaller, more frequent meals. And then, as they develop and grow older, we can do larger, less frequent meals. So it's not uncommon for your veterinarian to recommend having food out all the time while they're little.