Nicky is our fourth cat, but he's the first one we adopted as a kitten. Before bringing him home, Pat and I looked up some reference materials, and we followed their recommendations about introducing him to his new surroundings.
The guest bedroom became Nicky's nursery, complete with his bed, food, toys, and dust-free litter, and we spent as much time there with him as we could. The other 3 cats were kept out for several days, and then we began to let them get acquainted with their new brother in brief, supervised one-to-one visits. Nicky has always had a healthy kitten's appetite. At first we fed him only liquid formula, then introduced him to solid food by adding some dry kitten kibble to the formula, and soon he was eating straight kibble. But after a few weeks, we started letting him out of the room during the day, and he quickly discovered the other cats' bowls of Max Cat Adult. From then on, that became his favorite food. The kitten food didn't go to waste, though. We continued to isolate Nicky during the night for awhile longer, and we made sure his dish was full before closing the nursery door. In addition, Caitie-Belle had learned from her visits that there was good food in the new cat's room, so while Nicky explored the rest of the house during the day, she helped herself to the kibble left in his dish. |