yay! You’re on this page because maybe you have a new cat, or are starting to foster, or even starting a business.
Our favorite cat supplies
We recommend a high sided, open top litter box for cats. The open litter box is more inviting and the high sides help with high-pee-ers.
A tall scratcher can help prevent a cat from scratching your furniture. The height of this scratcher helps cats stretch out their back and many cats enjoy the feeling of this material on their nails.
To clip nails, we prefer a clipper that is similar to a small pair of scissors. We’re already familiar with how to use scissors so adjusting for a smaller set is easy.
Cat bowls should be stainless steel (or ceramic) to reduce the risk of a cat getting a reaction to the material and developing chin acne or a rash.
A Furminator does a great job with reducing shedding!
STARTING A BUSINESS
The most important aspect of starting a business is the financial portion. Even if you don’t manage your own financials, having a basic understanding of the principles of accounting will help you have a constructive conversation with your financial person.
Accounting for the Numberphobic helps give you the basics for terminology and their meaning
We read Profit First almost 3 years after opening and it flipped our business model so that we started to recoup our initial investment and make a bigger salary. Had we read this earlier, we may have started paying ourselves back way sooner!
fostering kittens
Kittens Aren’t Just Small Cats. If you want to foster kittens, here are our recommendations.
Let’s start with the kitten bible - Tiny But Mighty. This book has all the information you will need to foster kittens.
Most of us live in apartments without a spare room so if you have resident cats, you will want to separate kittens from resident cats. We like the set up of the clear pen because we can sit in it, but we prefer the puppy pen for when we’re traveling.
If your kitten is under 4-5 weeks old, you will likely have to bottle feed her. The PetAg bottle is our favorite, but we usually swap out the nipple on this bottle for the Miracle Nipple. There is a longer version of the Miracle Nipple, but we typically only use them for kittens under 5 days old.
We use the Breeder’s Edge kitten replacement formula because we find that kittens are less likely to get diarrhea on this.
We also mix probiotics with formula and kitten food to help populate kitten bellies with good bacteria.
Our favorite brands of kitten food are Wellness and Royal Canin.
When kittens start learning how to use the litter box, we like using pellet litter. Kittens tend to eat the litter as they start to wean so we start them on the pellet litter so they’re less likely to eat it.
We also use the cardboard boxes that canned food comes in as litter boxes for the kittens - they make a mess and life is easier when you can just toss out the whole tray and start over
Enriching your cat’s life
In Total Cat Mojo, Jackson Galaxy and Mikel Delgado help you understand your cat better and how to help them find their mojo.
The Greenies are one of the most popular treats with our cats and can be used as a treat or to help train your cat to do tricks.
Churus are a great treat to help get liquid into the diets of cats who may be less interested in water or wet food.
Crinkle balls are favorites for cats! Tossing out a crinkle ball is often a lot of fun for the cats + it can keep them occupied for a while!
The Catnip Dancer is a very inexpensive toy that cats seem to love. You control one end, and the other bobs around like a fly and the cats love it.
For cats who eat too fast (and throw up as a result) a slow feeder can help slow down their eating and prevent them from throwing up their meal.
Brands we use
The majority of our cats eat the Merrick Brand wet food in the Cowboy Cookout Flavor and Blue Buffalo Dry food.
We use World’s Best Cat Litter in the cat space - it’s flushable, easy to scoop, contains smell well, and is nontoxic.
When we have cats who have less than perfect litter box habits, we either use the Dr. Elsey’s attractant or litter. The litter clumps very well, which makes it is harder to scoop, but works extremely well with kittens and picky cats.