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In How to Care for Kittens, I briefly touch on how to set up a safe space for your new friend or your new foster kittens. There I list some supplies I use and review the items to include in a kitten’s home base. Here, I’ll share the essentials and how-tos in detail. Everything I mention for the kitten home base or foster room setup is either absolutely essential or significantly contributes to successful kitten care, less stress, and peace of mind. However, please don’t feel like you need to have everything at once, especially if you’re new to fostering!

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A Kitten’s Home Base

Cats and kittens are able to thrive when they have a predictable routine and their own territory to explore. These aspects are particularly helpful to felines when they are placed in a new environment or are experiencing anxiety.

If you’ve recently adopted a new feline forever friend or are setting up to be a kitten foster, read on to see how you can set them up for success.

Something to cuddle

Whether it’s for the sake of being physically comfortable or emotionally comforted, most kittens appreciate having something to snuggle when they sleep. This is especially important for kittens who are being fostered alone (they are sometimes referred to as “singletons”) or newly adopted kittens that have been raised with littermates.

You should at least provide small blankets or a flat pet bed, because at the bare minimum your kittens will want something soft to sleep on. If you’re feeling fancy, you could include a covered bed to provide a cozy place to sneak a nap in. I recommend offering something simple first until you get to know what styles and textures the kitten(s) prefers.

If you’re willing and able to go the extra mile, you can give kittens access to a Snuggle Kitty or a Snuggle Safe. Mine were gifted to me by friends and family; otherwise I would have taken some time to save money before purchasing these. My youngest cat was spoiled and enjoyed using the Snuggle Kitty and the Snuggle Safe after his littermates were adopted. His interest lasted for weeks! 🙂 Both products have proven to be useful with each kitten I’ve fostered, so I highly recommend getting your hands on these if you’re able, and especially if you plan to continue fostering.

A Snuggle Kitty fills the place of a kitten’s mother or lost littermate. It’s a plush cat with a battery-powered heartbeat and room for a heating pack. This item is beneficial for kittens wanting to feel soothed by the warmth and rhythm that a mother cat would provide while sleeping.

A Snuggle Safe is a disc that can be heated in the microwave. Once it’s heated, you cover it so the kittens can’t come into direct contact with the disc, and it stays warm for several hours. I use this after bathing kittens, and others use them to provide a heat source to neonatal kittens who are unable to keep themselves warm.

Something to eat and drink

Provide a dish for water and a dish for whatever type(s) of food you’re going to feed your kitten. Foster kittens in particular might not be used to having consistent access to food and fresh water when they first arrive in your home, so I recommend leaving the food and water dishes in one location through the duration of their stay.

It’s also important to provide high quality wet food that’s formulated for the kitten’s age. Consider giving meals of wet food after playtime so that your foster gets to experience the satisfaction of hunting or “killing” something during play and then eating a meal.

Something to play with

To activate those hunting skills, your kittens need something to play with. There are a couple of different options when it comes to strong engagement versus what kittens can be left with unsupervised.

Stationary play toys are one of the first things I like to introduce to cats and kittens. These are toys like ball towers, ball tracks, and small scratchers with attachments to swat at. The reason for starting out this way is that it gives me a baseline of what each critter is comfortable with. These toys don’t move unless the kitten does it themselves, so it’s not as surprising or unpredictable as a something like a feather wand or motion-activated toy. It’s also a decent way to accommodate for kittens with special needs while you figure out their vision abilities and movement abilities.

The toys previously mentioned would fall into the category of toys that are safe to leave a kitten alone with. Toys with long strings can become wrapped around their bodies and are therefore not safe to be left with a cat or kitten while unsupervised. Unless the cat or kitten has frequent chewing behaviors, you can leave them unsupervised with other toys like crinkle balls or toy mice.

To really help the prey drive kick in, start using toys that require humans to make them fun. Toys like feather wands, rainbow charmers, and laser pointers can really amp up movement coordination and the cat’s satisfaction that they’ve hunted something. Try playing with cats and kittens this way right before mealtimes for an added bonus! Having something to eat right after they’ve hunted and “killed” something is a real confidence boost for your kitty.

Something to go potty in

You’ll need a litter box that the kitty can get in and out of on their own. There are small ones for younger kittens and others that your cat can grow into. For young kittens that are brand-new to litter boxes, you can use something like a cardboard tray that you find underneath cases of canned cat food. Keep the litter box in their home base because it holds an important scent for your kitty. However, keep it removed from food, water, and bedding.

Use whatever litter the kitty is used to. Then, I recommend slowly transitioning to a pellet litter (or starting out this way with kittens). Pellet litter is safe for cats because it’s unscented and non-clumping. Clumping litter, if ingested by a cat, can be very harmful. Pellet litter is also easy to clean, long-lasting, and much more affordable.

You can transition to a type of litter you prefer by slowly adding a scoop or two of the new litter into the current litter box(es) each time you clean them. This will help the kitty gradually get used to the new smell and texture. Eventually, you’ll have a litter box that’s full of the new litter and your cat won’t even notice.

Something to scratch

There are so many different scratching options to explore! You can even make your own by tightly wrapping sisal rope around something sturdy. Take time experimenting with what your kitty prefers.

You’ll find vertical, horizontal, incline, and sloped scratchers at most pet stores. Offer different textures (cardboard, sisal rope, fabric, carpet, etc.) to see what gets your kitty to scratch the most. It’s important to find an option they really love, because scratching posts serve as important scent markers and visual signs of their precious territory.

Foster Kitten Playpen and Play Room Setup

In foster care, playpens and play rooms can serve more than one purpose. These areas can be the kittens’ home base while also serving as a safe place for them to learn how to be a house cat.

Start by making sure you have everything you would need for a kitten’s home base, and then check out the suggestions below. These tips will be helpful whether you’re in the process of setting up a room for future foster kittens, or if you’re looking for new ideas.

Supply cart

Wherever you house your foster kittens, I highly recommend having something that you can carry around with you. I use a supply cart to store food, cleaning supplies, the kitten kit from the rescue organization I foster for, toys, a water bottle, paperwork, clean food bowls, hand sanitizer, Kitten Lady’s book…

Okay, I’ve pretty much slapped everything onto this cart. I just love having something moveable for the ease of care, feeding, and cleaning. It’s also proven to be helpful if only because I’m not taking up a piece of furniture in my foster room! In my case, I foster out of my guest bathroom and my guest room that also serves as me and my fiancé’s office. It’s important for sanity’s sake that I’m not covering the bathroom counter or our desks with tons of kitten supplies.

Litter box placement

After you obtain a litter box that you know will be suitable for your group of foster kittens, finding a place to keep the litter box is key. You’ll want to keep the litter box away from any food, water, and bedding that you have available to the kittens. Thinking through this isn’t always easy, especially when you’re setting up a playpen for the first time. When I was first setting up my playpen, I must have moved the tiny litter box to five different spots. Within that tiny space, I needed to find a location that kept the kittens from tracking litter into their food and water or all over their bedding! It’s a bit easier to find a suitable place for the litter box when you can dedicate a whole room to the fosters, but that’s not reflective of everyone’s situations.

Wherever you finally decide to put the litter box, the kittens need to have enough room to turn all the way around. This is especially important if you have a kitten with special needs or a kitten who is brand-new to the litter box concept. You don’t want your foster kitties to feel cramped or cautious.

On that note, please do not ever put the litter box under, in, or on top of something. If a litter box is in or under something, the kittens might feel trapped when you or their siblings walk by. If the box is on top of something, you risk the kitten not being able to make it in or out of the box safely, or worse, the box may come crashing down. Just imagine coming home to that disaster for a moment…

Natural light

Ideally, your setup will allow your fosters to have access to natural light for at least part of their day. Every kitty I’ve met loves to nap in the sun, and having some time to soak up some vitamin D will be amazing for their wellbeing. If you’re struggling with how to make this possible for your fosters, here’s how I make it work with my setup.

For younger, smaller kittens, I leave them in the playpen during the day because the playpen is the only part of my current foster setup that has a window. In the late afternoon and evening, they get to explore the play room.

For older or larger kittens who have mostly outgrown the playpen, I leave them in the play room during the day. Then, I move them to the playpen to eat and nap during the late afternoon and evening. Next, it’s back to the play room to get those big movements in!

Access to movement and play

Understanding how to let kitties be themselves in a small space is crucial if you’re fostering younger kittens. As kittens grow and develop, they’re working on refining their play, climbing, and hunting skills. Therefore, your fosters need access to a space where they can run, jump, sneak, and climb.

This is where you can get creative with scratchers, climbers, and tunnels. Imagine that you’re setting up a kitten-sized obstacle course! Throw in a cardboard box or two with some toy mice, and you’ve got yourself a pretty solid jungle gym.

Cleaning supplies

Here’s a list of cleaning supplies I rely on for kitten care. However, please know that I didn’t start out with all of these supplies right away. I started with rags, rescue remedy concentrate, and one spray bottle.

• Rescue remedy concentrate. It’s pretty pricey up front, but it will last a long time and it really gets the disinfecting job done right!
• Spray bottles
• Stain and odor remover. You just never know what’s going to happen…
• Unscented wipes. These are great for giving water-free butt baths!
• Gloves. Again…you never know.
• Rags
• Bleach. I add bleach to any kitten-related laundry load.
• Small broom and dustpan for all the lovely litter sprinkles.
• Gentle soap for the inevitable butt bath.

Keep items separate

Once you feel pretty confident in your setup and stored supplies, make a plan for keeping all items separate between either different foster groups or from your resident pets. For example, there should be no risk for cross-contamination of litter boxes. This means that there should be a litter box for your fosters and a separate litter box for any resident kitties. The same goes for litter scoops!

The reason for keeping everything separate is that it can take around two entire weeks for illnesses to either shed or to present symptoms. Trust me when I say that it’s no walk in the park to have sick fosters AND sick residents! It’s happened in my home before, but luckily the health issues were all unrelated to one another. Even so…imagine having an outbreak of feline conjunctivitis or giardia.

First things first – you need to be able to rely on a closed door for at least two weeks. Don’t let fosters and residents be together in the same room until the quarantine period is over to avoid spreading illness. You can read more about feline quarantine in How to Quarantine Your Foster Kittens.

One of my favorite things I’ve included in my foster room is a mini fridge. It helps me keep all medications and food separate from my resident pets’ food. This way, I can get things in and out of either fridge and have immediate access to a sink for hand washing before I care for the next group.

I also recommend considering under-door draft stoppers to keep furry friends from coming into physical contact. I can’t tell you how many times my resident cats have set up camp right outside the playroom, only to stick their paws under the door and try to steal the fosters’ toys. The draft stopper I use keeps everything safely in the playroom and prevents my cats from having any access.

Getting set up for kittens is such an exciting process. I wish you the best of luck, and please check us out on social media to see our daily foster kitten adventures!

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Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. Any purchase made through these links may help me earn a small commission.

Resources: jacksongalaxy.com kittenlady.org

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Exploring animal welfare one foster kitten at a time