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Care
Recommendations: Updated on 01/11/10
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 EVO 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. You cannot buy the EVO in Petsmart
or Petco but I will discuss food in more detail later on
in these recommendations.
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 food silo with Babycat in it for the kitten to graze
on all day. In the morning fix two or three
spoonfuls of Babycat with one spoonful of EVO wet.
This will help them put on some weight for good growth
and health at this young age. You can feed the wet
mixture 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.
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 is serious and should be
looked at immediately. Sometimes the move to their
new home can be the cause. Another cause could
be an intestinal parasite. These are not
serious if taken care of immediately. 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.
Have it checked for worms, etc. 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 foods - EVO wet
and dry, Life's Abundance wet and dry & Science Diet hairball. We mix 2 parts each of EVO
and Life's Abundance with one part of Science Diet
hairball and put this mixture in a silo for them to
graze on all day. We have never seen a fat
Silver and cats are by nature grazers. In the
morning we mix a can of EVO and Life's Abundance
together with some supplements that I give to
them as a treat in the morning. They really look forward to this every morning. 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 Science Diet hairball
formula at Petco or Petsmart..
Supplements
A word about supplements. We
use these because of our breeding program and our desire
to have the most healthy Mom's and Dad's that we can
possibly have. If you are using the foods that I have recommended or some other food that has the same
attributes, you don't have to give supplements to your
Silver. I am going to list the ones that we give
just in case you are interested and you can read about
them to see how your baby was raised.
There is one that we recommend that
you do give and that is the Lysine. It
benefits their immune system and also will help with
eyes if they tear.
The link listed below is for the
Lysine. You can read about it on this site. Talk
to
your vet and make your own decision.
http://www.healthypets.com/vetsoluviralys.html?gclid=CKii_vz-6ZECFQJEPAodgiZPgA
The link listed below is for
Probiotics. This is a product for
their digestive systems. It is like eating
yogurt with active bacteria.
http://www.carealotpets.com/item-detail/?ItemID=000000000004299&vLink=1&#bigpicture
This last link is for vitamins.
https://www.nuvetlabs.com/order/default.asp?cat1=Cat+Products&cat2=NUVET+PLUS
Again, we would recommend
that you use the Lysine and the other two are up to
you..
We would like to
state at this point that we have NO ties to any of the
products that we have recommended. We
recommend these because they work for us.
Eye Care
Silver Persians have varying
degrees of eye staining. If done as needed it
takes a vary 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. I am going to list what you
need to get for taking great care of your Silver's eyes.
Supplies - Q-tips & cotton makeup
removal pads.
The first step is to take a pad and
wipe away the excess staining from their eyes. Then take a
Q-tip dipped in warm water and flood the area with warm
water and wipe it away with a pad. Do that as many times
as it takes to get rid of the residue.
If it has dried, use a wash cloth with
warm water and hold it on the area. It will loosen
the dried material and then use the Q-tips, water and
pads to clean the area.
If after this the area is clean but you
have staining use Eye Envy Eye Care products to
remove the staining. The link listed below is where we
buy the tear stain removal products that we and many of
the breeders that show use to care for their pets.
www.eyeenvy.com
This is a problem that all Persians
have to some degree. It must be kept up daily.
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 simply use Scoop-A-way. I get it
at Costco because I get it cheaper there. 40lbs for
$11.99
 
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