Fading kitten syndrome is a failure to thrive in kittens from birth to about five weeks old. Symptoms include lethargy, eating little or only small amounts, or showing gastrointestinal signs. It can progress rapidly from mild weakness to death. If you suspect this syndrome, seek medical care immediately. It's often caused by bacteria, viruses, or intestinal parasites. If you're unsure or need peace of mind, please bring your kitten in so we can examine it.

Look for the kitten to want to eat a full meal every two to three hours and rest between periods of activity. If they're not eating or moving around, it could indicate a health concern.

If the mother appears healthy, grooming the kitten, and allowing it to nurse, you primarily need to keep her and the kitten safe, fed, and warm. However, if she seems ill or neglectful, you might need to step in and take over bottle feeding, keeping the kitten warm, grooming, bathing, and stimulating it to go to the bathroom.

For newborns up to about five weeks, you'll need to use a kitten milk replacer and bottle feed every two hours or more if the kitten is vocalizing and readily accepts the bottle. As the kitten ages, these feeding windows will gradually lengthen. For very young newborns, you'll also need to stimulate them to urinate and defecate.

If you take in an orphaned kitten or one with its mother, you can provide a heat source like a heating pad. Cover it with a blanket and ensure the kitten can move away from the heat to avoid overheating.

Absolutely, you can hold a newborn kitten. Just ensure you are very gentle and careful, and make sure not to drop it.

It can indeed be a bit challenging to ascertain if a kitten is orphaned. Typically, if a kitten appears to be uncared for, it's a safe assumption it's orphaned. However, if the mother does not return within 24 hours, that's a clear sign the kitten is probably orphaned.

Ensure the kitten has a safe environment where it's not feeling threatened. You can stage introductions between a closed doorway, feeding the pets on either side for a week or so, then changing it to a baby gate where they can still see each other. If you have a pet that is not very receptive to the kitten, you might want to do a staged introduction, gradually advancing from there. The Ohio State University has some great resources on this topic.

Yes, it is possible. You just need to make sure you have some set time in your schedule, maybe 20-30 minutes, to play with your kitten to help them expend some of their energy. Cats and kittens are very active creatures. They hunt, they eat, and then they sleep. If we don't satisfy their hunting and predator behavior, they might potentially wreak havoc in your house, your hands, and your feet. So, ensuring that you help them fulfill their playtime needs, ideally within a fifteen-minute timeframe, is highly recommended.

Kitten-proof your house by isolating them to an area of the house or even a room of the house with their food, water, and litter box while they're getting their bearings. For the first weeks, keep them in an area to get them acclimated, especially if you have other pets at home, you might need to do a gradual introduction. Sometimes, kittens will like to claw furniture, curtains, and so on. So you might want to think about those things beforehand when you're considering an environment for your kitten to start off in.