potty

Question
Hi, I have a 5 week old kitten I received from a friend I know that works at an Animal Hospital. I have only had it for almost a day now, and I want to know if it is trained to use a litter box yet? Or do I have to train it? And if I have to train it myself, how do I go about doing that?  

Answer
Tesssa,

At 5 weeks, that is awfully young!!!!! I am surprised that anyone who works at an animal hospital would part with a kitten so young, unless it lost its mama!!!!! It is barely weaned.  

Normally mama, shows it what to do.  By watching their mamma along with their natural instincts to dig a whole, eliminate, and bury it, little kittens quickly figure out litter pan habits.

The best thing is to find out what kind of litter and litter pan your friend used and start with something the kitten is familiar with.  For kittens that small, I start out with a plastic pan no more than two inches high.  It can graduate to larger litter pans as it gets older and bigger.

I would start out your kitten in an enclosure (a large wire dog crate works well).  It will pick a place it likes to eliminate its feces.  Put the litter box there and put the feces in it.  Watch your kitten, if it squats to pee, put it in the litter box.  It is critical to keep the litter box clean.  Once the kitten is consistently using the litter pan for feces, scoop the feces up as often as you can.

Once a kitten gets the hang of it and is a little older, you can let the kitten wander a bit.  Kittens do get lost and, if there is no pan around, they will go wherever they are.  So, you may have to have a couple of strategically placed litter pans until the kitten gets its bearings.

By 8 weeks of age, the kitten ought to be pretty well into the litter pan thing.

One caution, I would avoid scoopable litter until the kitten is 4-5 months of age.  Little kittens will eat litter and the scoopable litter can be deadly!!!!!

A couple of books you might check out:  "Hand-Raising the Orphaned Kitten" by Dr. H.L. Papurt, published by Barron's and "Kittens for Dummies" by Dusty Rainbolt, published by Wiley.

Good luck and best regards.... Norm.