New foster here!

[u/JessicaDamnDay13]

I’m a brand new foster and am preparing to take 4–8 week old kittens through a local rescue. The plan would be fostering them until they’re old/big enough for spay/neuter and adoption.

I’d love to see photos of your foster setups, especially for this age range!

What are your “must haves,” favorite supplies, setup tips, or things you wish you knew before your first foster assignment? Any surprisingly useful items or things you bought and never used?

Thank you! Excited, slightly nervous, and trying to be prepared 😊

[u/Sea_Constant_77]

I’m fostering my first group (mama and three babies starting from when they were 2-3 weeks old), and I’ve used more puppy pads and cardboard boxes than I expected. I put the puppy pads in and under the big cardboard box where they were initially and keep puppy pads under the litter box now. They’re currently almost 8 weeks old and getting better at keeping the litter in the litter box so I may not need the puppy pads underneath for a lot longer. I’ve also used a lot of old towels and small blankets and done a lot more kitten laundry than I expected. They’re messy babies. 😂

Helpful items to have that I didn’t know about before or expect to need are warmers, a scale, and kitten milk replacement powder. We borrowed this warmer from another person we know who fosters: https://a.co/d/0b9MgYak. Kitten Lady has a lot of resources online that are helpful, and that’s how I found our kittens need a safe source of warmth for the first several weeks of their lives. I purchased a small food scale at a big box store to weigh the kittens (daily at first and every other day now) to make sure they’re gaining weight and intervene if not. I keep a note on my phone with their weights but Kitten Lady also has a chart you can download or print. The kitten milk replacement powder wasn’t needed a lot since their mom is with them, but if I had kittens not gaining weight for a day or two, I mixed some of the kitten milk powder into their wet food for a few days until they were back on track with gaining weight daily.

Also if you don’t have nail trimmers, they’re a good idea to get. I just use the ones I already had. Those kitten claws are sharp and I was looking like I had constantly been in a fight until I started trimming their nails every couple of weeks. And they’re really sweet kittens. They just have sharp feet!

The only thing I bought and returned because I didn’t need it was a kitten playpen type enclosure. We have them in a room that doesn’t have a lot in it, but when they started climbing out of their cardboard box, I was worried they were still too small to be running around. There’s a futon in the room and at first they could climb up but not really get down well so, I got them a bigger cardboard box. The week or so that box kept them contained was all they really needed. When they were able to get out of that box they were big enough and old enough to also get down from the futon safely. Since then they’ve been free range in the room and it hasn’t been a problem.

Have fun with your foster kitties!

[u/AUR1994 → u/Sea_Constant_77]

To add to all of this, whenever I would go in to check on my fosters, they’d act like I’d been hiding their food bowls the whole time so I’d have to plop them in front of the bowls and then they would eat like I’d starved them lol.

Whenever I would dish out wet food, that same faux-starvation would compel them to attempt to climb up my legs to reach the table while I was dishing out the food. This was fine and my mom found it hilarious but didn’t get any photos. Like I said, all fine and cute.

Until THEY STARTED CLIMBING MY BARE LEGS to get to the table! Imagine kitty claws sinking into your skin and because they’re little, they’d lose balance and fall off. Or more accurately, they’d drag their claws down my legs as they fell. It was bad. I’m covered in scratches. And although it’s not the prettiest sight to behold, I’d do it again in a heartbeat for those babies

[u/Sea_Constant_77 → u/AUR1994]

This. 100%. 😂 We’ve got one smart kitten who now runs to me and yells at the top of her lungs for me to hurry up and put the food down. The two boys still sometimes need to be given a “ride” to meals, but I’m starting to think they just like it that way.