New Kitten Checklist for Saint John

The short version: kitten food, two litter boxes and litter, food and water bowls, a carrier, a scratching post, safe toys, a bed with a hiding spot, and nail clippers. Buy the same food and litter the shelter or foster used so the kitten does not face a diet change on top of a house move. You do not need the expensive stuff on day one. A quiet safe room, familiar food, and a warm bed matter far more than a fancy cat tree. Everything beyond the basics can wait until you know the kitten and how it plays.

Think like a curious animal that can climb, squeeze into gaps, and swallow anything stringy. Tuck away and secure electrical cords, blind pulls and phone chargers. Get string, hair ties, dental floss and sewing thread out of reach, because swallowed string is a surgical emergency, not a hairball. Remove true lilies from the house entirely, since they cause kidney failure in cats. Close off gaps behind appliances, check the dryer before every load, and keep cleaning products and medications latched away. A kitten will find the one hazard you missed, so do a low-level sweep on your hands and knees.

Kittens get a series of FVRCP vaccines, the core combination against feline distemper and two respiratory viruses, starting around 6 to 8 weeks and boosted every few weeks until roughly 16 weeks. The first rabies vaccine goes in at about 14 to 16 weeks. Deworming usually runs alongside the early visits, since most kittens carry intestinal parasites. An adopted kitten from a Saint John rescue typically arrives with the first vaccine and a deworming already done, not the whole series, so your first vet visit is about continuing the schedule. Bring whatever paperwork the rescue gave you so the vet can pick up where they left off.

Most vets in the Saint John area do the surgery around 5 to 6 months, though some rescues spay and neuter earlier before adoption. It is worth booking ahead, because unaltered cats spray, roam, and reproduce startlingly fast, and a female can come into heat before you expect it. The microchip is often placed during the same anaesthetic, which is efficient and less stressful for the kitten. We cover clinics, costs and the low-income options in our dedicated guide, so rather than repeat it here, see our full walkthrough on spaying and neutering a cat in Saint John.

Kittens mostly train themselves, which is one of the quiet joys of raising one. Put the kitten in a low-sided box after meals and naps, use a fine unscented litter it can dig in comfortably, and keep the box away from the food and water. Two boxes is the standard even for one cat, and it helps a small kitten that has not mapped the house yet. Scoop daily, because cats are fastidious and a dirty box is the single most common reason a kitten starts going elsewhere. If a previously reliable kitten suddenly stops using the box, that is a vet question, not a discipline one.

The prime socialization window for kittens runs roughly from 2 to 9 weeks, when gentle, positive exposure to people, handling, sounds and normal household life shapes a confident adult cat. If you adopt a very young kitten, use this window deliberately: handle it daily, expose it calmly to the vacuum, visitors, nail trims and the carrier, and keep every experience gentle. Kittens adopted after the window can still become wonderful cats, they just may need more patience with new things. Either way, early positive handling pays off for years, so it is worth the effort now.

Kitten season in the Maritimes runs mainly through the warmer months, roughly spring into fall, when unspayed outdoor cats have litters. Greater Saint John rescues like Saint John SPCA Animal Rescue fill up with kittens during this stretch, and shelters are stretched thinnest exactly when the most kittens need homes. The upside for adopters is real choice in summer. The bigger picture is why spaying and neutering matters so much here: every fixed cat is a season of kittens that never floods the shelters. If you want a kitten, summer and early fall are when the pickings are widest.

No Greater Saint John clinic publishes a flat kitten-visit price, so treat any number as directional and phone your clinic for a quote, and remember 15% HST applies. As a rough sense of scale, a wellness exam with a vaccine and deworming is a modest cost per visit, and the whole first-year total, spread across the vaccine series, spay or neuter, and parasite prevention, adds up to a few hundred dollars even with an adopted kitten that arrives partly done. Our cat adoption costs guide breaks the year-one budget down properly. Booking with a clinic like Fundy Animal Hospital or Kennebecasis Valley Animal Hospital early gets you on their books before you need them.

Two is often easier than one, which surprises people. Kittens play hard and sleep hard, and a solo kitten with no outlet turns that energy on your hands, your ankles and your furniture. A pair wears each other out, teaches each other bite inhibition, and keeps each other company while you are at work. Many Saint John rescues actively encourage adopting bonded pairs or littermates together for this reason, and some list them as a pair that must go home together. If your budget and space allow, two kittens is frequently the calmer household, not the wilder one.

Mild, short-lived diarrhoea from the stress of moving and a diet change is common in the first few days, and mild sneezing or a bit of eye discharge can come from a common kitten upper-respiratory bug picked up in a shelter. Keep the food consistent and give it a couple of days. What is not normal is diarrhoea that lasts beyond two or three days, blood in the stool, refusal to eat, or a kitten that goes flat and quiet, because dehydration hits small kittens fast. When in doubt, phone your vet. Kittens have less reserve than adult cats, so err toward the early call.