What are the first things to consider when getting a new kitten in your house?
One of the first things you have to think about is vaccines, because we want to make sure they're protected from different diseases.
Dr. Rachel Rielinger, DVM
Pine Hollow Veterinary Services
What vaccines should be considered for kittens?
Your vet will talk to you about a few different vaccines, including the rabies vaccine, which is really the most important and required by law. And there's also an upper respiratory vaccine, plus or minus the leukemia vaccine, which will protect against a few different viral infections that cats can get. Feline leukemia and feline immunodeficiency viruses are two immunodeficiency viruses that we see in some cats. It can make them more prone to different types of infections, so it's really something that we kind of want to know if they have so that we can make sure that we treat them accordingly in the future if they ever do get sick.
When should you spay and neuter your cats?
Something else to kind of start thinking about is when to spay and neuter. So usually we spay and neuter our cats around six months of age or so. Cats can actually hit puberty a little bit earlier than that, so sometimes we'll kind of spay and neuter a little earlier. But yeah, there are a lot of farm cats out there, or just a lot of stray cats in general, so we definitely don't necessarily need more kittens in the world. So I would really consider getting your cats spayed or neutered.
What are geoparasites and how do they affect kittens?
Geoparasites is something else we see a lot of, things like roundworms and hookworms. There are a lot of other ones out there. Basically, those can be spread—a lot of them can be spread from the mom to the kittens when the kittens are born.
What treatments will the vet discuss for parasites?
Your vet will talk to you about a dewormer, and they'll also talk about flea and tick and heartworm medication, too, because cats are very susceptible to those things, as are dogs. But we want to make sure that they don't have fleas, which can spread to you, or ticks, which can cause diseases for you and all the other pets in the household.
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