New Baby Kitten Help?

A week ago, dear hubby saw a cat on our front patio.  He went out to look for the cat, then I saw the cat running away.

A few minutes later a bay kitten showed up from under our truck.

The mother never came back to get the baby so we feed the kitten at first with tuna, then with ground venison.  I feed it three times a day as I feel it is undernourished. I give it at least 2 ounces if not more.

It has been many, many years since either of us has had a cat.

We bought kitten food, wormer, and treats.

I don't think it is old enough to use the wormer, yet.

At what age can you tell what sex a cat is?  I call it she though I feel it is a he.

At what age can kittens eat dry cat food?

The first week the kitten wanted to come into the house so we got out the kiddy gate to keep the dog away from the kitten.  Now it does not want to come into the house.

What other things do I need to know?

(Not this cat) Cute picture I found on Pinterest:

Lol I thought someone dropped a human baby off on your doorstep.

I am allergic to cats but my elderly neighbor has a bunch. She said at week 4 you should mix dry food with formula and make a slushy mixture, and te following week you can give them more kibble that you mix with water. At 7 weeks they can eat all solid food.

For gender determination--on a girl, it looks like an upside down exclamation mark and on a boy it looks like a colon punctuation mark. There will be some lumps in the testicle area on boys a little later on.

You can deworm at 3 weeks, then week 4, 6, 8.

I had a similar thing happen years ago, momma cat gave birth and left a kitten in my garage. I gave it tuna and water all the time and it decided I was it's mom. I thought of keeping it as an outside cat but we had coyotes, rattlesnakes in the fields, rat snakes, and other predators and the heat was awful, so I used tuna to coax it into a box, got in the car and sneezed down to the shelter with him or her (never knew which). Beautiful green eyes, hopefully the lil cutie got adopted.

Thank you, Emily

You answered all my questions, especially about the sex.  I am now pretty sure kitty is a boy.

The wormer I bought says six weeks. Since I don't know the age of the kitty I am going to wait until our daughter brings me her wormer.  We think it is about 1 month old so by then the kitty will be about 6 weeks old.

Thanks again for writing such a great explaination.

Update:  Tiny Kitty turned out to be a female because she is a Calico.

Yesterday, our neighbor came by.  When he came in he saw our cat.  She was pacing back and forth trying to get out of the house because she does not like strangers.

Our neighbor said he only has one cat which is the 4th generation of his first cat.  A white cat with a red spot named "Tom".

Though he did say that our cat is one of the offspring of his wild cats and that our cat looks just like her mother.

At least now the mystery of where our cat came from is solved.

We have lived here 10 years without seeing a cat except one that got snake bit and died here.

This picture from Pinterest looks a lot like our cat if we add some red striped britches and longer sleeves on the coat:



https://permies.com/t/193396/Fascinated-Cat-Colors