What are the core vaccine requirements for kittens?

Core vaccines are the essential, don't-pass-on-these vaccines. And they include things such as rhinotracheitis, which is a herpes virus. There's calicivirus, feline leukemia is actually now considered a core vaccine, and rabies. So those are the big ones that, regardless of your cat's lifestyle such as whether they live indoors or outdoors.

The core vaccines are vaccines that are required for all cats, no matter what their lifestyle is. And so for our kittens, the core vaccines would be what we call our FVRCP, which is initials for the feline upper respiratory or respiratory diseases. Panleukopenia. Calicivirus. And rabies, of course, is another core vaccine.

We recommend that all kittens receive the Leukemia vaccine because kittens are the most susceptible to that virus. It's highly contagious from cat to cat. If they start out as being an indoor kitty, like we just said, some cats aren't happy doing that. You might find that later either your lifestyle changes or their lifestyle changes, and they go outside, so we want to make sure that they are the most protected they can be.

Rabies is required by law for dogs and cats alike, but rabies is a core vaccine along with distemper in cats. Let me clarify distemper in cats because it is quite a misunderstanding. Distemper in cats and distemper in dogs are not the same disease. They are two separate diseases, so it's a little bit confusing. I didn't name them, so don't blame me. They are two different diseases. When we give a distemper vaccine to a cat or kitten, we're not only vaccinating against distemper. We're actually vaccinating against several different diseases in that one vaccine. Another way of putting it is called FVRCP. Sometimes you'll see that on your kitten's or cat's medical record. It stands for feline viral rhinotracheitis, chlamydia, and Calicivirus, so it's a myriad of different diseases that we're vaccine for, which include primarily upper respiratory infections that we see in cats and kittens.

Core vaccine requirements for kittens start when they are about six to eight weeks of age. Core vaccines include feline viral rhinotracheitis, calicivirus, and panleukopenia, also known as the upper respiratory vaccine or FVRCP vaccine. Additionally, rabies vaccines are given at 12 weeks and older, and the American Academy of Feline Practitioners recommends vaccinating kittens for leukemia at a young age as well.

The core vaccines for kittens include the feline distemper vaccine (also known as FVRCP, which stands for respiratory complex vaccines), the feline leukemia vaccine for kittens or young adult cats under one year of age, and the rabies vaccine.

For kittens, the core vaccines are FVRCP, which contains some upper respiratory viruses and also an intestinal virus. We also consider feline leukemia a core vaccine in kittens because we want them protected, and they should get at least two of those vaccines, regardless of whether they're going to be indoor cats or outdoor cats in the future. With adult cats, if they're indoor only and we start seeing them as adults and we don't have a vaccine history, we usually skip that vaccine, but we want our kittens to be protected. Another core vaccine is rabies, which is required by law in most of the states in the U.S. and is one of the most important vaccines we can give.