To ensure the health of your newly adopted cat, make a vet visit as soon as you can.
This is essential to safeguard your kitten’s health and ensure that it does not catch any potentially harmful infectious diseases. However, if it appears healthy, you should try to get your kitten examined by a veterinarian within 48 hours. Ideally, this would happen before you even bring the cat home. If the kitten displays any sickness symptoms, such as wet eyes, sneezing, difficulty breathing, or inability to eat, it should be examined very once. Regardless of whether you think your kitten is healthy or not, you should keep it away from other cats until a vet gives the all-clear for socializing.
What Takes Place Throughout a Physical Exam?
Like an adult cat, your kitten will have a thorough physical examination from your veterinarian to rule out any health issues. This evaluation includes:
- Inside your kitten’s mouth, the tongue, the roof of the mouth, and any baby teeth will all be carefully examined.
- Taking your kitten’s temperature: Rectal temperatures in cats typically range from 101 to 103 F. If your kitten’s temperature is unusually high or low, there might be a problem.
- Your kitten’s abdomen will be gently palpated by your veterinarian to look for any irregularities.
- Checking the heart and lungs of your kitten A cat should have a steady, murmur-free heartbeat. The lungs should always just be allowing air to pass through.
- Your kitten’s veterinarian will feel its legs, especially its knees, to check the mobility of its muscles and joints and make sure everything is functioning normally. To make sure your kitten has a normal stride, they could watch how it walks.
- Examining your kitten’s eyes: Your kitten’s eyes can be examined with an ophthalmoscope. Your veterinarian will also look for signs like crusty and watery eyes.
- Checking for mites in your kitten’s ears Heavy, black debris will most likely be present in the ears of a kitten with ear mites. Your veterinarian may swab a sample from the inside of the ear to check for microscopic mites due to the high occurrence of ear mites in kittens.
- Because fleas enjoy cats of all ages, it is crucial to check your kitten’s fur for symptoms of fleas. Make use of a flea comb to look for fleas.
Which laboratory tests will be necessary for your kitten?
- Fecal analysis: You’ll likely be asked to bring a sample of your kitten’s excrement to the appointment with your vet. The veterinary staff will conduct testing on the fecal sample to examine for parasites such as intestinal worms, giardia, and other potential issues. Your veterinarian may administer a de-worming medication to your kitten at each visit because a sizable percentage of kittens have intestinal parasites, and not all of them can be identified by fecal tests. Any parasites on your cat must be removed because many of them can transfer to people.
- Blood tests: The American Association of Feline Practitioners encourages testing for FeLV and FIV in all newly adopted cats, regardless of age or if there are other cats in the home. As kittens under nine weeks of age are more likely to generate a false positive, your veterinarian may advise waiting until your kitten is at least nine weeks old before testing it for FeLV and FIV. It is advisable to keep any other cats away from your young kitten until they have been tested for FeLV and FIV and proven to be negative, just in case your new kitten has an infectious illness.
Discuss vaccinations
Most jurisdictions require cats to have at least one rabies vaccination, which is not offered until your kitten is a little older. You should discuss additional vaccinations with your veterinarian, such as those for panleukopenia, calicivirus, and rhinotracheitis. Vaccinations must be given at specific ages and intervals in order to be effective.
Decide when your kitten will be neutered or spayed.
If this operation wasn’t finished before your kitten was adopted, you’ll need to make an appointment. While the procedure for spaying and neutering is frequently carried out between the ages of five and six months, some specialists may advise performing it sooner or later.
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