Hand reared kittens smaller??

Hi,

I've just read a post on another board about a hand reared kitten being particularly small, and are hand reared kittens normally smaller when fully grown.

Does anyone have any experience in this? My hand reared little boy is now 9 weeks, and he does seem small, although he eats well and is very healthy. Although on saying that, his paws are massive!

Also, have you found hand reared cats are a lot different to others when they're grown up? My neighbour is a vet, and hand reared her 2, and her male one is SO soppy, he thinks everyone adores him, and of course they do! The problem is, he sees no danger - I worry that he's going to get hit by a car one of these days. He just wanders out into the road. And the other day he came home covered in oil.

This is the first kitty I've hand reared, so would be interested to hear of others stories about theirs!

 

My aunt has a hand reared kitten....he's about 10months old and he is huge. This cat is like a guard cat. He hisses and swats and any vistors that come into the house. I'm not sure that this behavior has anything to do with him being hand reared though.

 

Hehehe.. I hand raised Copper. And he is about 19 pounds. I figure it was all of that expensive kitten formula. But he is a big cat without the "extra gas in his tank" lol. His tail is really long and always has been. I guess he just grew into it.

Behavior wise, he definately has issues lol. But all of my kids do. He doesn't clean himself that much--that's about the only thing I have noticed different than Sabrina. He doesn't seem real graceful either. But he isn't as messed up as the vet told me he would be. He talks to me alot unlike my other cat. And has some separation issues with me and my dogs (they helped me raise him).

 

this can happen occasionally

One of my females years ago rejected one of her kittens repeatedly and it had to be hand raised. It never got to the size of the others. I recently at a vet appt came across a woman with 12 pups, these were Shi Tzu's. Two of them had to be hand raised and the larger of the 2 was still half the size of the other 10 with the other hand raised 1/2 the size of the other that was still being hand raised.

 

my kittens weren't hand reared but their mother didn't come around them a lot, so I ended up bottle feeding them when they were really little, eventually Peanu (their mom) got around to actually feeding them, but then they were weaned a little later... they were unusually small until they were 10 months, now they're huge!

 

hey rabbit where you been

 

I know it's off topic, but it's really nice to hear from you again Rabbit
How are you doing? Do you still have the kittens? Or maybe it's kitties now, it's been a while :roll: