Beginner guide to raising a cat / kitten as pet

Raising a cat / kitten as your pet is very easy. In fact, it's easier than raising a dog (based on my experience of having both dog and cats). Here's a step by step guide on how to raise a cat / kitten as pet.

Preparation

1. Cat litter box (toilet). 

You need to prepare this before owning a cat, or at least immediately get one on the day you own a cat. Otherwise, you will find your cat pee / shit on your furniture.

There's 2 types of litter box. You can buy a standard litter box in pet shop or just a tray. As long as you load them up with sand, and visible to the kitten, 90% the cat will automatically go there to do her business. You don't even need to train them. If your cat is among the 10% ones, then you are the unlucky ones and need more patience on teaching them how to use the toilet. 

You can check more information on cat litter box in my previous post here - cat litter box.

2. Cat food

For temporary measures, you can serve any food to the cat. Just go to local hypermarket such as Tesco, Giant, 99 Speedmart, 7/11 and buy the cat food on offer. On these locations, they usually sell Whiskas, Purina, ProDiet. You can also serve them human food, though it's not recommended.

For long term, you need to buy kibbles (dry food) or wet food (if you are rich enough) that caters for cat. Please note, there's some brand that specialized nutrition needs for kitten and adult. There's also some brand that can be eaten by both kitten and adult. 

Among the standard brands I have used are Taste of the Wild, Equilibrio (currently using), Iams, Ciao, Royal Canin. These are the brands that I have given to more than 10 cats so far and all are healthy so far. Now the oldest at 2 years old.

For more information on cat foods, check out my previous post here - cat food

** Warning, if your kitty is just under 1 month, they need mother milk. They can't eat human/cat food, they will die. Google for information on how to feed them artificial mother milk and hope for the best.

That's it. Easy right. Just 2 simple steps of preparation.

From Day 1 age onwards

1. Food

This is the main criteria for raising a cat. Give them good food, and they will grow healthy. There's plenty of information in the internet on what to feed them. Don't give them human food as it will destroy their kidney later stage in life. Human food are salty. 

Also, don't be cheapskate and feed them cheap kibbles (dry food). I heard from forum, that one of the owner cat suddenly die due to liver failure, after living just 1 year with him. And he has been feeding them cheap kibbles.

2. Vaccinate and vet services

It's time to visit the vet. Visiting the vet is the most costly expense in raising a pet. When the kitty is 90 days of age, you can start vaccinate them. Just tell clinic you want vaccinate, and they will know what to do. Average cost of vaccinate + deworm is RM 40 - RM 60 (depending on clinic). Usually, we do vaccination and deworm together.

It's extremely important to vaccinate your cat, if you don't want your cat suddenly die from a disease. For more information on why it's important, check my previous post here - should vaccinate cat?

If they are sick, you need to bring them to vet, instead of hoping for the best. For example, if they cough, they won't recover from the cough naturally until they eat medicine. I had tried let them recover naturally but the cough just won't go away even after 2 weeks.

3. Spend time with them

If your cat starts purring you, then it's a validation that they are happy to be with you. Good job. If they don't purr you, then you need to do better. And what is purring? 

Play with them. You can buy toys to play with them, but honestly, they will get bored within 1-2 days with the new toy. They need interaction with you. Playing the fishing rod toy is one the way to spend time with them and making sure they have some exercise.

4. Cage free lifestyle

To be honest, if you intend to keep your pet in a cage, then you better don't raise them as pet. They are not your toy or furniture. Imagine a whole life living in a cage. Living on street with freedom and dying due to car crashing on them is more meaningful then living in a cage for their whole life.

Most owners will worry about furniture getting scratch. Well that's a sacrifice you need to make, if you want to raise a pet. If they can't roam around the house freely, at least provide a section for them to roam, like inside a room.

5. Grooming

Brush their hair often to prevent hair dropping. At least once a week as per recommendation on the internet. Yeah, at least once a week, but I actually did less than that because I am lazy. Bad owner.

Bath them. But if they don't like to bath, let them be. Check out my previous post for a more detail explanation whether we should bath our cats or not - Bath?

In fact I never bought them to shop for grooming and if you visit my youtube channel, you can see my cats are all pretty nice. This is personal preference though. I didn't bring to shop cause I don't know how they treat my cat after I leave. I tried bathing one of my cats, and he is so scared until he shit himself. If I bring to a groomer, they might just force my cat to bath regardless how scared he is.

Veterinary cost for your cat

You might be wondering how much is needed when bringing your cat to vet. Below are the cost I have encountered while visiting a vet in Bukit Rahman Putra, Sungai Buloh, Malaysia in year 2020.

Neutering - RM 100

Spaying - RM 150

Vaccine - RM 45

Dewormer - RM 8

Hospitalization - RM 40 / night

E-collar - RM 28

Anesthesia - RM 150

Wound dressing - RM 25

Consultation - RM 20 - RM 30

Flea medicine - RM 37

Below is a stray I brought to vet because of her ear problem. The cost is around RM 50. After eating medicine, the ears is healed in a week. And 3 months later, she gave birth. Look at what a difference RM 50 can make. If I didn't brought her to vet, most probably she will succumb to the virus.

Should I spay or neuter my cat?

What is spay and what is neuter? Quite a technical terms but put simply, spay is for female, neuter is for male.

Before I put my first cat for spay, I had this dilemma whether I should or not. And I struggling to find a proper answer for weeks. Many internet articles will support spaying and neutering and one of the reasons is control population. I think this is bullshit. Who are we to control their population? We are not playing gods. In fact, it's quite a sin to alter their organs, at least that's my believe.

Here's the pro and cons of spay/neutering your cat. It's up to your judgement. But I have spayed/neutered all my cats, never regretted because I can see they are suffering if they are not spayed/neutered. Imagine the feeling when they need to go out and mate, but can't go out since they are indoor cats. I guess there's a price to pay for being indoor cat, unfortunately.

Pros of spaying/neutering

1. Hormones won't raging in their body and they won't have the urgency to go out to mate. It's suffering if they are full time indoor cat
2. They won't mark territory by urinating all over your house. It's a matter of time they start marking territory all over your house because they can't go out to mate.
3. If your house has male and female cats, they won't mate with each other. You will have trouble if your cats population start to grow within your house.
4. The grow fatter, looks nice?

                                                  Look at his fat ass months after neutering

Cons of spaying/neutering

1. Personally feel it's a crime to alter their organs. Imagine someone alter your sex organ without your consent.
2. Any operation has risk, even though it's minor. There's every chance the cat will die due to anesthetic or virus infection after surgery
3. You need to dedicate 14 days of your time to specially take care of them. Make sure their stiches not opened. Otherwise, it's a nightmare and prone to virus infection such as FPV.

Should I vaccinate my cat / dog?

100% yes and must. Don't wait or delay. This will protect them from virus. Yeah virus and it's scary like hell, just like COVID-19 causing death. You hear me, it will cause death.

Previously, I had no experience in handling cats as pet. I didn't know that vaccination is so important and I always procrastinate and never take this as priority. 

There's this tragic story where I had 2 kittens living together in a room. One had vaccinated once, another didn't.  Then one day, the one who didn't vaccinate yet, I call her Lulu, suddenly vomit. Vomit is normal for cat, and not a big concern actually. Then the frequency increase the next day to 3 times a day. Then 5 times the following day. Worse, Lulu is not eating anymore. 

So I brought her to veterinarian for checkup. I got the shock of my life, when the veterinarian told me she actually dying 😭 We had a blood test on her and she contracted FPV - Feline Parvovirus. There's no cure for this virus. The veterinarian suggest me to bring to a veterinary that has hospitalization facility, to have any chance of alive. I immediately bring her for hospitalization, put on drip. Doctor say she has 50/50 chance to be alive. Unfortunately, she died the following day. Still feeling sad while typing this.

According to the veterinarian, if the cat has vaccinated, the chance of contracting this virus is far lesser and even if contracted, they are strong enough to fight it off. A painful lesson for me.

** Curse this FPV - Feline Parvovirus. It will eat up the cat internal organs and Lulu stomach actually got destroyed by it. There's a day, when Lulu actually shit out a long rubbery stuff, which I suspect is her intestines 😭😭😭😭😭😭

                                                             Rest in peace...... Lulu

How to raise kitten from Day 1 Age

Day 1 - Day  60

No panic. It's actually very easy to raise kitten if you also have their mummy with them. Basically, you do nothing at all. Let nature takes its course. Magically, the mummy will breastmilk their kittens and kittens will also find milk on their mummy. Just prepare a bowl of water and little box. For unknown reason, I barely notice any shit from those kittens until after Day 60.

It's best to keep mummy and their kittens together in a room if you can afford or in a cage (if you can't afford space). 

I had a painful experience by letting nature takes its course. I put them in a big box outside my yard, and after 1 week, the mummy transferred her kittens to another place. However on the 3rd week, the mummy brought back 2 kittens to my yard, and both had eye infections. Luckily for 1 kitten, her eyes are saved after a visit to vet. But for the other, her eyes are blinded. Another 2 more kittens are missing/dead.

So, if you want to keep them safe and healthy and avoid vet cost, just keep them in a safe place such as room or cage.

                                                                            Day 0

Day 14-30

Most articles in the internet refer that kittens will have their eye opened on the by the 10th day. If they don't, it's a cause of concern and need to bring them to vet on the 14th day.

For my personal experience, day 20-30 is the maximum limit before brining them to vet, if their eye still doesn't open. Make sure to bring along the mummy, so that the kitten and mummy won't have emotional stress.

                                                                            Day 14

Day 19

Day 60 onwards

From around this days, the kittens will start to eat your money :) You will need to feed them kitten kibbles. And by just feeding them kibbles, they can grow into beautiful kittens.

                                                                            Day 60

Day 180

If your kitten is eating well and shitting well, then it's time to bring to veterinarian for de-worm and vaccination. Is it important for vaccination? It surely does. This will be explained in the next article.

Do I need to bath my cats?

The answer is yes or not. If you cat loves to bath, why not? But most cat don't like water. And bear in mind, they easily get heart attack. So, if every time your cat feel very scared when going to bath, don't force her. In the long run, the cat might caught heart attack. However this can be trained when the cat is still a kitten. When young, if they are well trained with bath, then they won't be that scared every time we bath them.

It's best if you try to bath your cat yourself instead of sending to grooming center. This is because, you never know how scared your cat is when grooming center bath them. 

Doesn't the cat gets dirty if no bath? 

Actually no, if the cat always indoor. Cats will always groom themselves by licking themselves. This action is a bath for them. For my cats, they didn't bath for months and yet there's no smell when I ask my house visitor whether they are smelly or not.

Do you think they need a bath?

                                                        

Can I feed fish to my cat?

Cat likes fish but don't feed a whole fish to them. The bone must be separated. Only feed them fish meat. One common believe is when we throw fish to cat, they will like it. They like is because of the smell and not the bone.

But cats are dumb enough to eat the bone as well since it's hard to separate and this will resulted the bone piercing their throat and causing injury.

So, conclusion, never ever feed a bony fish to your cat.

Can I feed cheap kibbles to cat?

No. If you don't want heartbreak, please don't feed cheap cat food to your cat. I have heard stories where the kitten suddenly die within 1 year old. According to vet, this is due to organ failure from long term food intake.

It cost more but there's a responsibility you need to take as cat owner. All my cats are reaching 2 years old soon and I have feed them with Equilibrio, Taste of the Wild, IAMS, Royal Canin, Ciao. Unfortunately, these brand didn't sponsor me to type this article. Just sharing my experience.

So, if the cat food is within these brand price range or higher, those food should be up to standard 😀

What cats eat

Cat can actually grow healthily by eating 100% kibble (dry food) as their only diet. There are a lot of dry food brand. Some brands have kitten and adult cat categories, where as some other brands can be eaten by kitten and adult. Make sure you feed them with the correct type, so that they will have the right nutrition.

Currently, I am feeding them with Equilibrio. Have tried Taste of the Wild, Royal Canin when they are kittens. But they drop less fur when having Equilibrio. That doesn't mean others are bad though. It's just more suitable for my cats. You will need to try different type of brands to see which suit your cat most.

Once in a while you can also feed them wet food and snacks. But it's quite expensive to serve it daily. If you can afford it daily, why not? They just loved it!

Ps: This is speaking from my 2 years of raising cat from kitten to adult cat. Since they can grow so lovely as below, I guess my method is just fine, if not the best.

What sand to use in cat litter box

Again speaking as an owner of 8 cats, here's my advice on what sand to use for cat litter box.

There are 2 type of sands. Mainly

1. Low cost sand
Pros
- Cheap. Around RM 12 (USD 3) per box.

Cons
- Dusty
- Troublesome to dispose
- Not as effective in covering smell than higher cost sand


2. Higher cost sand

Pros
- Easy to dispose. Can flush the sand into toilet bowl without stuck.
- Example of flush-able user friendly type of sands are "Tofu litter", which I currently using

Cons
- More expensive. Around RM 25 (USD 6) per box (2.5kg)

How cat goes toilet

Ever thought of having cat as pet? Toilet issue will be one of your main question before adopting cat as your pet.

You must be wondering how they go toilet. Do they need to be toilet trained like dogs? The answer is no.

As unbelievable as it sounds, cats are toilet trained naturally. This is from my own experience of having 8 cats as pets, raising them from kitten to adult. All you need to do is buy a litter box and put sand into it like this.

Of course to make thing easier, for a start, make sure the the cat is in a room with the litter box for a couple of days. You will be giving the cat a real challenge if you put a litter box at a corner of the house, and expect the cat to know of finding it. But once they recognize the litter box, you can actually do so, and they will pee or shit in the litter box just like we go to toilet, naturally.

How to categorize kitten and cat?

A kitten will turn adult cat when they are 1 year old. Make sure when you feed them kibbles, they are for kitten or for adult respectively. This is important as kitten and adult cats have different nutritional needs. Some kibbles are suitable for all though.

This is my American Bobtail who is going to be 2 year old soon.