Using ID Collars With Identical Kittens

When you have kittens that are identical or nearly identical it can be hard to keep track of them. Depending on the situation, you may need to weigh them often, medicate them, feed them or pee & poo them. Over the years people have come up with a lot of creative ways to tell their kittens apart, such as: painting their claws, putting a dab of nail polish somewhere on their bodies, using a marker on the inside of their ears, hair elastics around their necks... Of course there is a lot of debate about how safe these solutions are which has made Velcro ID collars the go-to choice for many people.

Velcro ID collars are sometimes called “whelping collars”. Whelping is the process of a dog giving birth and breeders use these collars for the puppies. You can buy packages of these collars with several different colors and they are fairly inexpensive. They are washable, reusable and easily adjustable. This means the same collar can be used from the day they are born to adoption day. The Velcro doesn't get stuck in their fur and they are completely safe to use.

Using them is simple. You just wrap them around the kittens neck leaving a finger-worth of space so they aren't too tight. Don't give in to the urge to make them overly loose as the kitten can get their leg stuck in the collar if there is too much free space there (I'd have to show you in a video to see how this happens but it can be avoided by making the collar fit appropriately).

If you swipe through the pictures on this post you'll see a litter of newborns with their mama. You can see how bulky the collars look on neonates that size so I cut the collars in half lengthwise. The following pictures have a tutorial on what I do to keep the collars “curved”. If you don't do this the edge of the collar may want to stick up a bit. You can see what I'm talking about in steps 3 & 4. When the edges won't wrap down, they sometimes catch on the mama's fur & the bedding and the collar ends up getting pulled off of the kitten (don't worry, I've never had a kitten get stuck to something; it always comes off). So my solution is to cut them down to size, coil the collar up tightly and wrap them, edges covered and folded down, with another Velcro band or a rubber band for a while. When you go to put them on the kittens, the inner edge of each coil will be the most rounded. You'll want that end on the outside of the collar so it will stay wrapped down.

There are also 6.6 ft length rolls of the Velcro that you can cut to size. They also come in multiple colors. These long rolls would be good for those who foster often or for shelters/rescues. You can find these collars in the links below or HERE on my Amazon “shop” in the Kitten Foster Supply list.