How to Grow Your Cat in OSRS A Comprehensive Guide

In Old School RuneScape (OSRS), raising a pet cat is a rewarding activity that adds a unique companion to your adventures. Whether you’re an Ironman looking to trade cats for death runes or a casual player wanting a furry friend, growing your cat from a kitten to an overgrown or specialized cat requires care and strategy. This guide covers everything you need to know to successfully grow your cat in OSRS, optimized for both new and experienced players.

To begin your journey, you need a kitten, which is the starting point for all cat variants in OSRS. Here’s how to get one and what to prepare.

Completing Gertrude’s Cat Quest

The first step is completing the Gertrude’s Cat quest, which unlocks the ability to own a kitten. This quest is beginner-friendly and requires minimal combat or skill levels. You’ll need to:

• Start the quest by speaking to Gertrude in Varrock, south of the general store.
• Gather items like a bucket of milk, raw sardine, and 100 coins.
• Complete tasks to rescue Fluffs, Gertrude’s lost cat, in the Lumber Yard.

Upon completion, Gertrude rewards you with a free kitten. Subsequent kittens cost 100 coins each, but you can only own one kitten at a time.

Choosing Your Kitten’s Color

Kittens come in various colors (e.g., black, white, grey and blue). The color is random unless you have an activated Ring of Charos, obtained from the Creature of Fenkenstrain quest and activated during Garden of Tranquillity. With the ring, you can charm Gertrude to select your preferred color, adding a personalized touch to your pet.

Caring for Your Kitten Essential Tips

Kittens are delicate and require regular attention to grow into adult cats. Neglecting them can lead to them running away, so follow these care tips.

Feeding Your Kitten

Kittens need to be fed raw fish or specific items to stay healthy. If 30 minutes pass without feeding, they’ll become hungry, and after further neglect, they’ll run away. Suitable foods include:

• Raw sardine or herring: Affordable and easy to obtain via fishing or the Grand Exchange.
• Raw karambwanji: Stackable bait from Tai Bwo Wannai, ideal for long-term care without inventory clutter.
• Bucket of milk: Less common but useful for reverting Hell-kittens to their original color.

Tip: Stock up on raw karambwanji for convenience, as they’re stackable and don’t take up multiple inventory slots.

Interacting with Your Kitten

Besides food, kittens need attention to avoid feeling lonely. Interact with them every 30 minutes or so to keep them happy. Interaction options include:

• Stroke: A simple way to show affection.
• Play with a ball of wool: Boosts their mood and is fun for role-playing.
• Chase vermin: Allows your kitten to hunt rats, with a 10% success rate, adding a mini-game element.

Warnings appear in the chatbox (in red since an August 2017 update) if your kitten is hungry or lonely, giving you time to act before they flee.

Monitoring Growth Progress

Kittens take approximately three hours of active following to grow into an adult cat. To check their progress, right-click and select “Interact,” then choose “Guess age.” Growth is tracked by a timer that increments every 90 seconds, but logging out or frequent world-hopping can reset this cycle, slightly delaying growth.

Advancing to Adult and Overgrown Cats

Once your kitten matures, it becomes an adult cat, and with further time, it can become an overgrown cat. Here’s what to expect at each stage.

Adult Cat Stage

After three hours, your kitten becomes an adult cat, which no longer requires food or attention. Adult cats are more agile and have a higher success rate when chasing vermin. They’re also tradable to civilians in West Ardougne for 100 death runes (200 with the Easy Ardougne Diary completed), making them valuable for Ironmen.

Overgrown Cat Stage

After an additional 5-6 hours of following you, an adult cat becomes an overgrown cat. These larger felines are less agile and can’t catch rats effectively, but they retain their trade value for death runes. Overgrown cats allow you to purchase a new kitten from Gertrude, restarting the cycle.

Cat Stage	Time to Reach	Death Runes (Normal)	Death Runes (Ardougne Diary)
Kitten	0 hours	0	0
Adult Cat	3 hours	100	200
Overgrown Cat	8-9 hours	100	200

Specialized Cat Variants Wily and Lazy Cats

For players seeking more advanced pets, overgrown cats can be trained into specialized variants after completing the Ratcatchers quest.

Training a Wily Cat

Speak to Felkrash in the Rat Pits to train your overgrown cat into a wily cat. Wily cats are agile, with heightened senses, and excel at catching rats, butterflies, and kalphite larvae. Their combat stats are impressive:

• Attack: 12
• Strength: 8
• Defence: 2
• Hitpoints: 12

They require regular exercise to maintain their prowess, or they’ll revert to lazy cats.

Managing Lazy Cats

If a wily cat doesn’t get enough exercise (e.g., by chasing vermin), it becomes a lazy cat, which is less effective but can be retrained into a wily cat. Lazy cats have slightly higher stats in some areas but lack the agility of wily cats. Keep them active to avoid this regression.

Unique Features and Uses of Cats

Cats in OSRS offer more than just companionship. They have unique interactions and practical uses that enhance gameplay.

Hell-Kitten and Hellcat Variants

By chasing hell-rats in Evil Dave’s basement (accessible after Recipe for Disaster), any kitten or cat can transform into a hell-kitten or hellcat. These devilish variants have unique dialogue (especially with a Catspeak Amulet) and can revert to their original form with a bucket of milk. Hellcats are tradable for death runes without needing to revert them.

Using the Catspeak Amulet

The Catspeak Amulet, obtained during Icthlarin’s Little Helper, lets you talk to your cat. Kittens have childlike responses, while hell-kittens are mischievous. After the quest, an extra dialogue option lets you review quest events, adding a fun role-playing element.

Storing Cats in the Menagerie

If you have a player-owned house (POH), you can store your cat in the menagerie, allowing you to acquire a new kitten from Gertrude without trading or losing your current pet. This is ideal for players raising multiple cats for trading or collection purposes.

Trading Cats for Death Runes

Adult, overgrown, wily, lazy, and hellcats can be sold to civilians in West Ardougne for death runes, a valuable resource for low-level players and Ironmen. Use a West Ardougne teleport or the Rat Pits minigame teleport for quick access. The Easy Ardougne Diary doubles the reward, making this a lucrative activity.

Raising a cat in OSRS is a blend of patience, strategy, and fun. From nurturing a kitten to training a wily cat, each stage offers unique rewards and interactions. Whether you’re after death runes or a loyal companion, this guide equips you to grow your cat efficiently. Start your feline journey today, and let your cat become a standout feature of your OSRS adventures!