8 weeks is much too young for him to have left his mother and litter mates. Considering you bought him from a backyard breeder, he may even be younger.

To answer your main question, no it is not okay for him to be alone this much.

He's not sulking, he's alone and afraid most of the time. This is going to affect his personality as he grows.

 

He was born on 4th April so he's 9.5 weeks now.
What shall I do? What's the solution? I can't book time off as I am a teacher and we can't get time off in term time. Soon I will have the holidays off but that'll be in July.
I will carry on paying cat sitters to come in every day, but what am I supposed to do when I'm asleep?
Does that mean that single people can't get pets?
Thanks for helping any advice is always much appreciated!

 

Welcome @Staranise - and welcome to your kitten too.

I will start by saying you may well get lots of fairly strongly worded responses to your questions - please don't let this put you off but you have found a forum where the members are completely passionate about the care of animals. There are many passions here on the forums - homing kittens which are too young (and there are many members who have been "burnt" by this Backyard Breeder phenomenon of pretending that kittens are older than they are and selling them before they get too expensive to care for, eating into their profit) is one of them. Cats being neutered, feeding wet food/raw and non-free roaming are other things which may cause hot debate

For the situation you are in now, well, yes, your little one is alone too much - particularly given that he probably isn't the age stated as @lorilu says. Would you consider a rescue kitten as a mate for your kitten? There are so many "half XXX breed" cats which are sold for vast quantities of money but are in fact moggies as they are not pedigree cats with papers (nothing wrong with moggies, we have one!) - you'd be as well getting on the waiting list for a kitten from a rescue.

Have you tried to settle him in your room at night? What about his little blanket/a bed on your bed? He just wants to be with you, he doesn't want to be alone - no baby mammal wants to be alone. He is a kitten, he will have tonnes of energy - and if he's alone all day he will probably just sleep as there's no interaction and hence the huge amounts of energy to burn off before bed. It will take a while to settle down - just ask @SuboJvR who homed her kitten from a BYB when he was about 5 weeks - sold as 8+ weeks - he's taken a year to settle.

I do hope that you can figure things out. Also, please get him castrated as soon as your vet will do it. Oh and photos of your kitten are most welcome

 

Hello @Staranise - as the others have said your little kitten is spending too much time alone and he is lonely and becoming withdrawn as a result. Hence the hiding, bless him. In addition he is half ragdoll and raggies are a breed who love human company and don't do well left alone for hours a day. (my sister used to have ragdolls)

It would have been better really if you could have postponed getting him until your summer break begins. Even if that meant you paying the breeder for his upkeep for the next month. Is it possible he could go back to the breeder until July?

Usually Back Yard Breeders home their kittens too early because of the expense of feeding them. So it you offered to provide the kitten's food then the breeder may be able to take him back for a month.

If your kitty had a kitten playmate right now, it may not be so bad for him, as the kittens would have each other to play with. You could have adopted a kitten from a Rescue to keep him company - the Shelters are full of kittens at present. But your little one needs companionship now, not so much when he is 19 weeks old. By that age, having lived on his own, he will be used to being an only kitten and you may have problems getting him to accept another kitten.

If you can't adopt another kitten now then you will need to be his playmate and spend all your free time with him playing with him, nurturing him and helping to build a bond with him. Kittens can be a big time commitment at his age and leaving him alone for up to 19 hours out of every 24, really is too much.

if you are not able to spend more time with him and he can't go back to the breeder for the next month, then I think your only option is to engage someone to spend the days with the little fellow, keeping him company, feeding and entertaining him. Maybe a cat loving friend or relative could come and stay with you for a month. Or you could engage a paid cat sitter to come and spend every weekday with him - for say 6 hours a day. It may work out expensive but it will be worth it, as your kitten will be much happier and will grow up to be a well balanced sociable adult.

 

Thinking laterally here - we are about to use sitters from a website called trusted housesitters when we go away. The idea is that they pair up animal loving folks who need a place to stay in your area with pet owners who are going to be away.
If you have a spare room, perhaps you might find someone on there to stay a few weeks, as long as you are up front with them about what's needed.
The sitters seem to fall into a few different categories - youngsters on a break, adults with jobs where they can work from anywhere, and retired people.
There is no money between pet owners and sitters, it's a straight swap, but you do pay to use the website. Their support seems reasonable so maybe send an email before signing up.

 

trusted housesitters

A friend of mine uses them and they have always been great.

 

Yes, one of my previous neighbours used to use these live-in house sitters whenever she went away and she found them excellent.

 

Sprry @Staranise I dind't mean to leave without further explanation but I got called away. I was also going to suggest adopting another cat from a shelter, a young adult possibly, so the baby has someone to teach him how to be a cat.

However the issue remains, one kitten or two, they need more time with humans than you can provide. If you had asked first, I would have advised you to visit local shelters and rescues and adopt an adult pair looking for a quiet home to live out their golden years for now, and save the kitten raising for when your lifestyle is more suitable.

I suppose a house sitter might solve the problem, but then, someone else would be raising your cat. It really hurts my heart to think of that baby alone all day except for a brief visit from a stranger, and then shut off from you all night too.

At the very least you should accept that until he adjusts to your routine, you are going to lose sleep, and let him in with you at night.,. He needs to be with you. He needs interactive games with you several times a day. He needs wet food, lots of it, four or five times a day.

I don't think someone who is gone 10 or more hours a day on a regular basis is really prepared to have a pet, honestly. It's just not fair to the animal.

 

Hello, all. Thanks for the replies.
I tried him in with me for an hour in the middle of the night at 3am, but he just didn’t settle and I needed to sleep as I’ve got an interview today. So I put him in here again at 6 and he’s been in here for an hour and a half. It took him an hour to settle, but eventually, he settled for cuddles which was great.
You’re right. I know how to raise a cat, but I should have done my research first before getting a kitten.
He definitely is 9 weeks old now and he definitely was born on the 4th April. I know all about neutering and vets stuff: he’s had his first injections so that’s fine.
He definitely is half ragdoll- I meant mum and she was a gorgeous, long haired, white, well-raised, happy house cat.
I was told it was only one breed in her lifetime, which is why I agreed to it, but you’re right, the owner has since divulged she’s doing another breed next year which is really sad.
Don’t worry- I am playing and cuddling him every waking hour I’m here and obviously at the weekends.
I’m happy to get a rescue cat in a few weeks to be his playmate, but it will have to be half ragdoll at least because the only ones I’m not allergic to are ragdolls becsuse of their fur
What do you mean about the wet food? The owner and the vet told me normal dry kitten food is fine.
Yes, I’ll definitely look into house sitters- that’s a much better idea. He is having interaction in the day with familiar friends, but like you say, it’s not enough.
Thanks

 

What do you mean about the wet food? The owner and the vet told me normal dry kitten food is fine.

The owner is wrong. And vets generally speaking don't know anything about feline nutrition. What they know they are taught by pet food representatives.

Cats need moisture in their food. Kibble is high in carbs and dehydrating and can lead to many illnesses over the years, the most urgent, especially for a male cat basically living alone, would be urinary tract disorders.

Your kitten needs wet food and plenty of it.

Here's a website written by a vet who specializes in feline nutrition.

www.catinfo.org

 

Ok, this is probably going to be long, but please stick with me. For background, I am a breeder of a very sociable, dependent breed, very like the Ragdoll. I was single when I got my first cat and single when I started to breed. I was also holding down a full time job.

To answer your first question, it is not Ok for a kitten to be on his own for so long. It is less Ok for a kitten of a social, dependent breed to be on his own for that long. Effectively, if you are sleeping for 9 hours and teaching for 11, the kitten only has interaction with you for a maximum of 4 hours per day, and that's not counting your eating, house cleaning etc, so likely less. That is 1/6 of his day when he has anything to do. It's really not enough. An instant remedy to this is to stop shutting him out of your bedroom. The first few nights of having a young kitten in with you are horrendously tiring, but after that, if you slepe train them, it's not a concern. I sleep train all of my kittens so that they settle with new owners and they don't have to deal with this. I litter the bedroom floor with toys, then allow the kitten in with me. Every time they jump on the bed, I assess what they're doing. If they come for a cuddle, I give them a quick tickle, then cuddle them up in my arms and pretend to go back to sleep. Most kittens get bored of this quickly and want to play. If they start running around on the bed, I do 1 of 2 things. I first start off with cuddle punishment. It's commonly accepted that physical punishment doesn't work. Instead, I give mine love. I pick them up and cuddle them, and hold onto them to the point that they are getting really, really wriggly to get down. Then I put them down and let them get on with whatever it is they're doing. If in bed, this is on the floor where all the lovely toys are. I do this every time they come up on the bed if they are running about and being very playful on my quilt. Cuddles are booooooooring when you're a busy kitten on a mission, and you absolutely don't want them when you're having a wonderful time running all over the place and attacking the quilt monsters. Over time, you learn that for some reason, when you play on top of the bed, the silly human is going to pick you up and do the boooooring thing again. However, if you are a lunatic on the floor, for some reason, she lets you get on with it. So logic dictates it's better to play on the floor, so you do. Then when you're tired and want a boring cuddle, you crawl up on the bed with the human to get one.

If this takes a while to set in, I also, with the slower kittens, interrupt their play, lift them off the bed and set them gently on the floor by the side. No communication or interaction at all. Most will jump right back up and carry on harassing you. Keep doing it. The first 3 or so nights you will get very little sleep, but if you're consistent with this, I've never had a kitten interrupt my sleep longer than this, and believe me, I've had some rambunctious litters! At 9 weeks, I can have a full litter wrecking the house, but they know they will only get away with it if they don't disturb me while I sleep. My mum stayed with me during one of these periods and slept in the kitten room. She said she slept like a log, but woke up feeling a bit trapped to find she had mum, surrogate uncle, and 6 babies all on top of her fast asleep. The whole house looked like a bomb had gone off in it and they'd clearly had a wonderful time, but nothing disturbed her until they came for a cuddle.

That done, the next thing you need to do, and very urgently, is get him a kitten playmate. The next 2-4 weeks are absolutely crucial as they are the main socialization period. If he remains on his own with no interaction, you're likely to get a shy, fearful cat who avoids humans and is scared of household noises as he isn't hearing them on a regular basis. If your breeder won't take him back, which would be the best option so he can learn from mum, then another kitten will keep him busy and tire him out, meaning that when you get home, you can focus on normal life and integrating the pair of them. Being blunt with you, Ragdolls are not the only cat you are not allergic to. They don't have different furr than any other breed, and in any case, it's dander or saliva people are allergic to, not the furr itself. If this were actually the case, your own kitten would be bringing you out in all sorts of allergies as he's only half Ragdoll. I would either give him back, or get another kitten and take antihistamines if you need to. Why did you get a cat so early if you knew you wouldn't have the time to help him bed in until the summer? Just curious.

As a single person, I discovered very, very quickly that I couldn't work and have a singleton cat of a social breed. My first Persian went from a bubbly, outgoing girlie to a depressed, lazy lump within a few weeks, and didn't perk up again until she had company. Since then, I have never allowed a cat to be alone while I'm out at work, making sure that, if segregated into groups, every cat has a friend to play with no matter their age. Even my fat, very pregnant girls who can't do much have wanted their pals with them, and everyone is desperate to see me when I get back. My evenings are devoted to the cats, as are much of my weekends. People think I'm strange, but I've made the commitment to them, so need to be around. if they want me. I also, after many, many long and protracted fights with my husband to be, refuse to close my bedroom door to them at night. It took H2B a very long time to appreciate their neediness as he is used to normal cats who are a bit more independent, but now even he gets concerned if we don't have a full complement of faces at bedtime. I get up early in the morning to feed and play with them before work, and it's the first thing I do when I get back to help them burn off energy. It's hard to fit in all the time they need, but it has to be done. When I have kittens, I put in longer days and get less sleep. I always book a week off work if I have a new cat coming, and spend the whole of that time settling the newcomer in.

I hope some of this helps with your current situation. Feel free to ask any questions that come up. Nobody here is being judgemental, we're just all very passionate about getting this right.

 

@Staranise
Hi, and welcome

As was mentioned to be a well socialized and happy cat they do need time and attention, especially important during the early socialization phase.

If you are ok with a Ragdoll mix, as was said, another kitten may be ok as well not necessarily a Ragdoll or Ragdoll Cross.
We have two cats, a three year old long haired black cat in my avatar and a short haired older kitten.
A friend who is allergic to cats was fine visiting when we just had the fluffy cat but sneezes now we have both, so his allergies reacted to the short haired kitten.
Our male neighbor is allergic to cats and has trouble at his in-laws but is fine with both our boys.
It may be worth telling a rescue about your allergies and they may be able to provide a sample from a few kittens or young cats for you to get tested.
Or allow you to visit a cat or kittens in foster care to see how you do.
Also with it being high kitten season, there may not be waiting lists at all shelters.

Good luck, it is worth it in the long run for a happy and well adjusted companion to make sure his early experiences are good.

 

We made it through Joey’s kitten hood relatively well in the end. He was a handful, he still is, but somehow we coped. When he was really young though we wouldn’t leave him for more than four hours at a time which was only as I could arrange that with work including working from home. He was also, except from the first night, never left to sleep alone. And yes, that was painful. Many many sleepless nights but not enduring it was never an option, getting a second cat was also never truly an option, so we knew we would just need to get through it really and we did. The way I saw it, people who have kids put up with sleep deprivation for a while, I could manage too for a kitten I loved to pieces.

If you are thinking of getting a second kitten anyway, do it now. It will help heaps and take the pressure off you!

 

I’d say get another kitten ASAP to give him company while you’re at work and make sure you spend time with them when you’re home.

I know things have changed, but we brought our two kittens home at 8 weeks and worked full time.

I don’t remember any dramas tbh.

Think they slept most of the day and we gave them lots of attention when we got home. They also had free run of the house and slept with us at night. A few restless nights at first, but they soon learned to settle and fit our sleep pattern. Silicone earplugs might help

They were well adjusted cats who were extremely affectionate and lived long and happy lives. (Given they were going to be drowned at birth I’d say coming home with us was preferable.)

Food wise, I would now avoid all dry and stick to a good wet food.

If you can provide an outdoor cat patio with a cat flap into the house that would be ideal for when they are adults.

 

Hello, I'm a new (single) kitten Mum too. My Jinx was born on 7th April and I brought him home on 1st June. I know everyone here is very caring but to me, a some of what has been said has come across as quite judgemental and I wanted to say don't be so hard on yourself. There may be an ideal way to raise a kitten but it's not always possible to do it that way. You sound like a loving caring Mum which in my opinion is very important.

I worried a lot that 8 weeks was too young to have Jinx but in the end I took the view that if I didn't take him, someone else would and that home wouldn't necessarily be better than mine. The internet allows for a much easier advertising audience and people are willing to pay almost anything. Jinx came from an accidental litter (I checked with the 7 year old daughter who would have given Mum away for sure) but his sister was sold without even being seen by her new owner. I knew I could guarantee a better home than that.

I was luck enough to be able to have a week off to settle him and although I work full time, my job role has changed so I am often home by lunchtime or early afternoon. At night he sleeps in his box in the kitchen. He does cry when I leave him but he soon settles down. I have a camera to check on him and once he realises it's bed time he tucks himself up in his box with his bear.

In terms of food, my childhood cat and my sisters cat have been fed entirely on dried food and they were fine. Jinx has some wet food as well because dried just seemed dull to me and he was fed on wet before I got him. He now has wet morning and night and dried whilst I am out at work.

Whilst I may not be raising him in line with the ideal, he is happy and loving and full of beans. Give your boy time to settle and keep doing what you are doing. He will get there.

HS x

 

In terms of food, my childhood cat and my sisters cat have been fed entirely on dried food and they were fine. Jinx has some wet food as well because dried just seemed dull to me and he was fed on wet before I got him. He now has wet morning and night and dried whilst I am out at work.

I doubt they were "just fine" because chronically dehydrated cats never are really fine, but you wouldn't notice, since cats hide feeling poorly, it's instinctive to them. It's when you put them on a species appropriate diet you notice the amazing difference and realize that they weren't "just fine".

The thing is, when you know better, you can do better. It is now known how bad dry diets are for cats. I recommend you get a timed feeder (they come with ice packs if you need them) and use that during the day for him to have a meal when you are away at work. He will be so much healthier on a wet diet. Train him to be used to it first of course.

 

Can I just say, as a passionate cat owner of 4, I fully agree with what @Hammystar said and congratulate her on an honest and realistic response. There is a gold standard in kitten raising, and sometimes there is the do the best you can standard. I have taken an 8 week old kitten off a backyard breeder and although my circumstances are different, as I only work 12 days a month and have a partner to help, you are doing the best you can, and the fact you recognise the potential shortfall is the best attitude and excepting advice will be even better.

1) Yes, a kitten play mate will help you out. I took on two 8 week olds together while I was single and they are a very bonded pair now. They kept each other entertained for hours. But... If not feasible, which I appreciate it may not be... Then you need to do the following...

2) Fill the room with plenty of toys, cat trees, and puzzles. There are some very innovative toys on the market, make it a kitten paradise. Your kitten does need some stimulation at this age, its where she learns skills. Yes it may require some outlay, but for your piece of mind, it will be worth it.

3) Maximise bonding time when you can. Play non stop, and lots of reassurance.

4) in my opinion (dont shoot me), a good quality complete dry food is perfectly fine providing she has access to various water supplies. A cat water fountain is probably a must here. Try kitten milk for a treat, its hydrating but calorific.

5) Dont panic. She will be fine. There are cats a lot less fortunate than yours, I'm grateful she has a home with a caring person.