Care Recommendations:  Updated on 08/30/10

Taking Your Kitten Home

When adoption day arrives you will be given the following items to help make the transition for your new family member as smoothly as possible.

o - Pet Carrier

o - Medical Record

o - Supply of food the kitten is used to eating - We will discuss changing the kittens food later in these recommendations.

o - Security Blanket - Has the scent of the kitten's litter mates.  Use this blanket especially at night while sleeping to give them something familiar.

Before you come to get your kitten spend some time at home preparing your home for the kitten's arrival.  You can save yourself some anxious moments by doing the following:

1) Make sure your kitten cannot get into any type of chemicals or pest control substances. 

Animal Poison Control # 888-426-4435

2) Limit the kitten to one room when left alone and then let him branch out to the rest of the house. Remember they love to explore and they will find every hole you have in the house.  Sometimes it is not so easy to get them out. Bathroom's, kitchens and utility rooms are the worst for small places to hide and dangerous chemicals.  I have towels stuffed in holes up underneath cabinets in every room.

3) Check for access holes to hot tubs and Jacuzzis. Check around your dishwasher, refrigerator, washer and dryer.

4) We will send you home with Royal Canin's Babycat kibble and Wellness Grain Free Kitten wet food.  This is an excellent nutritional food and made just for kittens at this young age.  Notice the size of the kibbles.  It is easy for them to eat and they love it.  You can purchase this food at Petsmart or Petco. If you want to change their food now is the best time to do that. Simply introduce the new food as a small part of the food you are presently feeding and then over the next 5 days increase the new food and decrease the old food until the transition is done.

Feeding your kitten:  Use a glass, ceramic or metal bowl with Babycat in it for the kitten to graze on all day. This will help them put on some weight for good growth and health at this young age. Feed the Wellness wet food in the morning or at night, whichever fits your schedule best.  They will come to expect it at whatever time you choose to feed them. Feed the wet food twice a day until they are 1 year old.  Then one time per day afterwards.

 5) Things to look out for:  If you have done all of the above then the only thing you need to look out for is this.  If your kitten is not eating, drinking, using the kitty litter, playing and grooming then something is wrong.  If your kitten has diarrhea then there is something wrong.

Remember that the kitten being sick one day is like you being sick for a week.  You cannot wait to act.

Diarrhea can be serious and should be looked at immediately.  Sometimes the move to their new home can be the cause. Take a stool sample to your vet right away to have it checked.  Do not let the diarrhea go for more than one day without being checked.

Most newly adopted kittens go home and have no problems at all.

Lastly, you should make an appointment with your Vet to have him checked as soon as you get him home.  Take a stool sample with you even if everything looks fine. They have been checked several times prior to you picking them up.

FOOD CHOICE

Food choice for your Silver is as important to their physical health as eating the right food is for you.  Remember that foods you buy in a grocery store and even at Petco and Petsmart are not necessarily the best.  Think about it this way.  The manufactures of pet foods are not held to the same standard that your food is so manufactures have more latitude to make it to their advantage and not  your pets.  Therefore, you have more grains and preservatives in most pet foods than is necessary.  That is because the shelf life of most pet foods needs to be longer as the average age of these foods is 12 months or more by the time you open the bag. 

So where do you get fresher foods with less grains and less preservatives?  It stands to reason that if that is going to happen, you will not find those fresher pet foods in grocery stores or even in pet stores.  That is not to say that some of the foods in pet stores are not good; i.e., Science Diet, Wellness and Spots Stew are good foods.  In my opinion they are not the best but superior to anything found in a grocery store.

This is what we do at Shensilvers.  We actually feed three different dry foods - EVO, Life's Abundance & Royal Canin Persian( for hairballs).  We mix 2 parts each of EVO and Life's Abundance with one part of Royal Canin Persian and put this mixture into the appropriate type of bowl  for them to graze on all day.  We have never seen a fat Silver and cats are by nature grazers.  We feed them in the morning and evening a mixture of  Wellness  and Life's Abundance Instinctive Choice wet.  If you don't want to order the Instinctive Choice you can feed just the Wellness. They really look forward to this every morning and evening.  We are including the Web Sites of  EVO and Life's Abundance for you to look at if you like.  They use human grade ingredients with no grains or fillers and no preservatives.  It is only slightly more expensive, a dollar or two, but I think it means less visits to the vet in the long run.  If you get on Life's Abundance automatic shipping they do not charge for shipping and EVO you get at a local dealer.

Follow the link below for Life's Abundance.  If you are interested, get on their auto ship because shipping is free.  They alert you to the upcoming shipments.  You can call and delay it if you have enough food or even tell them to stop until you notify them to start shipping again.

http://www.healthypetnet.com/HealthyPetNet/Products/Cats.aspx?realname=&cat=0&hdr=&Ath=False

Below you will find the link for EVO.   You cannot order this online. You have to locate a distributor and you do that by clicking on the where to buy link.

http://www.evopet.com/products/default.asp?id=1501

We buy the Royal Canin Persian formula at Petco or Petsmart.. We use it because it has hairball medicine in it to aid your cat in passing hair.

Supplements

If you are using the foods that we have recommended or some other food that has the same attributes, you don't have to give supplements to your Silver.

Eye Care

Silver Persians have varying degrees of eye staining.  If done as needed it takes a very short time to clean them.  If you let it go it can take a few days to a couple weeks to get them back in good shape.  This is what we do to clean the eyes:

We use Eye Envy (www.eyeenvy.com) liquid and powder.  Use either a Q-tip or makeup removal pad and saturate the stain with the Eye Envy liquid.  Then use a Q-tip or the tip of your finger and pat on some of the white powder.  Leave it on the stain and it will help to lighten the stained area.   If you would like to talk to a representative at Eye Envy you can call them on the telephone number listed on their web site.  Or call Brenda.

Bathing

Your kitten has already had more than one bath and we do use a blow dryer.  I did not say they liked it but they have already been exposed to bathing and drying.  Basically it depends on your kitten.  When they get dirty wash them...  I would not bathe one of our cats more than once every 2 or 3 months unless they get unusually dirty.  Some cats keep themselves so clean you may never need to bathe them.

We use a high quality tearless shampoo from our local pet store.   Make sure you rinse thoroughly after shampooing.

Hint: Comb them out completely before the bath.  If you don't they will be matted worse than they were before the bath.

Grooming

As in all things Persian, the degree to which you need to comb them varies by the kitten.  This is an as-needed situation and varies by kitten. 

If you find a mat the sooner you comb it out the better. 

We use one comb in two sizes.  Below I have put a web site that shows you the two combs.  These are all you need.

http://www.revivalanimal.com/store/p/3249-Grooming-Comb.aspx

 Litter

We use  Dr. Elsey's Precious Cat for Seniors.  This is an excellent litter because of how it handles the urine and fecals.  You remove the fecal like normal but the urine stays in the litter and is absorbed.  It does not clump the urine like the other litters.  Don't worry, this will not cause your litter box to smell.  The litter box itself stays cleaner, there is no smell and it kills the bacteria.  This aids in keeping bacteria exposure to a minimum and less likely for your Silvers to get Urinary Tract Infections as well as other infections. The Longhair formula also helps in keeping the litter from sticking to their hair but our cats prefer the Senior so that's the one we use. 

Advantages:  First and foremost it is healthier for your cats.

1) Less weight for you to handle.

2) Less to dispose off.

3) No smell from litter box. Litter box stays cleaner on the inside.  And the litter scooper never gets messy.

4) You will spend less time taking care of the litter box.

How to get started using it.

1) Precious Cat recommends mixing your old with this and then gradually get to 100% PC.  I did not do this, I put it in their boxes and they never

 had a problem with using PC. Of course this is a great time to disinfect the box with a mixture of ammonia and water to clean the box.

2) Put 1 1/2 to 2 inches of Precious Cat in to the litter box.

3) To clean the box just remove the fecal and stir up  the urine in the Precious Cat with your scoop.  The urine ball is very soft and will break up

  and disappear into the litter.

The cost is not as expensive as you might think.  8lbs is about $15 but you use less of it.  One bag of Precious Cat will last us longer than a 40lb box of the other clumping litter.

You need to at least give this litter a try.  We love it!

Go to www.preciouscat.com to check out this product.  We use no other litter in our cattery.