REARING OF KITTENS. 



339 



MRS. BONNY'S " DAME FORTUNE. 

 (Photo: L. R. Stickclls,Cmnbrook.) 



Rice is a very indigestible food for kittens, water added to a saucer of any liquid is very 

 especially cold ; but rice-water, strained from advisable, as it strengthens the limbs and 

 rice boiled to a pulp and given quite cold, is use- forms bone. If a kitten under a month or six 

 ful in checking diarrhoea. 

 Melox is a most useful food 

 for kittens of ten weeks 

 old and upwards, soaked 

 for an hour or two in a 

 little good gravy, and given 

 crumbly (not sloppy), and 

 a little scraped raw meat 

 mixed with it. For younger 

 ones a tablespoonful of red 

 gravy from a cooked joint, 

 poured over some bread- 

 crumbs, proves an appetis- 

 ing meal. 



Small meals at short in- 

 tervals are infinitely better 

 than heavy meals at long intervals, and if 

 a young kitten is left for many hours till half 

 famished, it will in all probability eat too 

 much and suffer in consequence. From four 

 to ten weeks six or seven 

 meals in the twenty-four 

 hours are none too many. 

 I am presuming that till 

 that age they will be with 

 their mother at night, 

 which will do away with 

 the necessity of providing 

 food between 9 p.m. (when 

 the last meal should be 

 given) and 8 a.m. Give al- 

 ways a light and warm meal 

 for the breakfast. After 

 ten weeks lessen to five 



meals, after three months 

 four, and give four till six 

 months old, when they may 

 be fed as adults, unless one 

 should be delicate or has 

 been through severe illness. 



The best test of a properly thriving kitten 

 is its weight, and i Ib. for each month of 

 age is a fair average, occasionally exceeded 

 by very big-boned and robust kittens. For 

 young growing kittens a teaspoonful of lime- 



M R S. BO NNY S ' DKREB1 K 



(I'lioto : L.R. Slickells, Cranbrook.) 



weeks old is unfortunate 

 enough to have a severe 

 illness, whether epidemic 

 or accidental, my advice 

 is to chloroform it. At 

 so tender an age the con- 

 stitution rarely recovers 

 from the strain. 



Although this article has 

 no intention of encroach- 

 ing upon that treating 

 specially of diseases, our 

 aim and object being to 

 rear such healthy sturdy 

 families of kittens that 

 they shall never have any 

 diseases, yet, en passant, it might not be 

 amiss to remark what a valuable medicine for 

 the first symptoms of distemper is Pacita, a 

 herbal medicine that can be obtained in both 

 powder and pill form. 

 The latter is to be pre- 

 ferred, as, the smell being 

 very nasty, kittens rebel 

 against it. Half of No. i 

 size pill is sufficient for a 

 kitten under three months, 

 to be given fasting in the 

 morning an hour before 

 food for three mornings. 

 It reduces fever and clears 

 the system in a wonderful 

 manner. 



The question of outdoor 

 exercise must now be dis- 

 cussed. 1 speak of summer 

 kittens only. Winter kit- 

 tens viz. those born from 

 November to February- 

 are, I think, a mistake. Out 

 of season, like forced green peas at Christmas, 

 they have not a good start in life ; the damp 

 and darkness of those months is very deterrent 

 upon young life. Nature's plan of arranging 

 for the new lives to come chiefly in the spring 



