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.

Yes, and I would always recommend making sure that you have a fresh, clean bowl of water available at all times of the day.

I want them to start working on either canned food or dry food at that six-week mark. But once they're about 10 weeks, they should be consistently on dry food.

I definitely wouldn't recommend it. Even though that's like an age-old thing that we see, I wouldn't recommend it. It's not the best nutritional support for these guys.

No, it's an age-dependent necessity. Those younger kittens that are purely on milk at that stage in their life need to be bottle-fed. But as they get a little bit older, again that six-week mark, we can go ahead and transition them over to dry or canned kitten food.

I generally recommend that kittens should start weaning about five to six weeks of age. So, of course, if you come across a kitten who is not with their mother that's younger than that five to six week of age, then they'll have to be bottle-fed. But if they're older kittens, so at least about six weeks of age, then we can go ahead and start transitioning them over to canned or dry kitten food.

If there's no pain medication given to prevent it, it's just like any other kind of surgery, or even if you fall off the bike or cut your finger with a paper cut or anything like that—any trauma to the skin will cause pain. But we're very adamant here in Advanced Animal Care in Advanced Animal Care Berea that we prevent any pain at all. So, we are very aggressive with our pain management protocol for pets.