Newborn kitten -when can I stop force feeding him?

Question

I had kittens born on Tuesday morning a litter of 6 to a too young mother, but anyway she's doing really well with them and 5 are growing huge. One runt nearly died/still not thriving. He is called Biscuit. He only weighs 75 grams. We were force feeding him with a syringe as he refused to suck on mummycat and wouldnt suck from bottle- or even suck the syringe. We have got up every hour and a half to two hours through the night and stayed hom in the days and just dropped 1-2.5 mls in his mouth a drop at a time making sure almost all was going dow. He hates it and screams but he was nearly dead...this morning he got 2 syringe fuls- so like 4mls- into him then an hour later i noticed he had 'got up' and crawled over to mummycat and was NURSING on her! Properly. I could have cried. Now i dont want to get too excited it is early days...howver should i still force feeding him as i was? I dont want to get back into the situation of him deteriorating again; clearly he had become weak from lack of food (his siblings just pushed him off the teat all the time) so how much should he nurse from his mummy in a day and should i still be 'forcing' the kitten formula into him?

He has not been rejected at all and 'piles' up with the others when they sleep and gets a good wash from mummy with all the others.

I really want him to live! The last litter we had 2 weeks ago were a premature lot and they all died from not feeding which was heartbreaking.

(and the mother has now been spayed all our cats get spayed!)

with thanks

Answer 1

if your not sure,ask the people that works at vets or ask the experts on cats in yahoo answers.

Answer 2

If biscuit is still feeding from mummy Id take it one minute at a time for now... if he looks like he is getting enough food and is not being bullied or pushed away by his siblings I'd say that maybe it is safe to stop force feeding...just keep an eye out in case he starts to look as if he's not suckling.. especially at night ...well done getting the queens spayed you know it makes sense!

Answer 3

Maybe momma kitty has a large load on her hands, but some kitty formula and a bottle from petsmart or something, and help her by feeding some of the other kitties while the other 5 are nursing.

that will also leave room for biscuit, :)