Question about hand raised kittens

Question

I found 2 small kittens about 3 weeks ago. After hours of looking for mom cat and finding nothing, I am now "mom". I have spent hours trying to get them to eat from a bottle but they are now about 6 weeks old and it's time to come of the bottle. They eat wet food and will lap up the formula and sometimes water, from a small dish but they still really want the bottle cause of the sucking. I don't even know where to begin on getting them off the bottle without them starving. Any advice anyone can give me would be a big help since this in the first time I am looking after kittens this small and without and mother. Thanks!

Answer 1

Start by mixing a little canned kitten food in with formula and getting them to lap that up.  Every day, increase the amount of canned kitten food and decrease the amount of formula.  After about a week, they will probably be on canned food alone.  During this time a kitten's digestive system is adapting to cope with solid, meat-based food instead of milk. Dry food can be introduced into the diet later on.

If you can get hold of a liquid cat food such as Liquivite, you could give them some bottle feeds with that in (either on its own or mixed with formula) so they get used to the new taste in their diet.

Cut down the number of bottle feeds each day and keep an eye on their weight.  Their mother would cut down the number of times she allowed them to nurse. At the shelter we have a shelf the mother can jump onto, but is out of reach of the kittens, when she doesn't want the kittens to suckle so often.  

Congratulations on getting them this far.  Weaning may take a couple of weeks, but much of the suckling will be comfort nursing rather than nursing for food.

Answer 2

I've hand raised several "bottle babies" over the years. The way I started to wean them from the bottle was to slowly reduce their bottles by 1 every other day.

Mix the milk replacement with the wet food and make a "slurry" consistancy, which they should take to readily. If they don't, you can put that in the bottle instead and enlarge the hole in the nipple and let them suckle that instead. This will also be more filling and thus require less feedings.

Also, mix the milk replacement into the dry food, and slowly reduce the amount of milk replacement until they are eating the dry food plain. Do the same with the wet until they are eating normal on their own.

I've got baby number 4 living in my bathroom right now, so I've done this 3 times before lol. It's a lot of work, but it's so rewarding! Good luck and thank you for doing such a great thing!

Answer 3

I found my kittens about the same age I kept them on the bottle for about 1 or 2 week  and then slowly introduced dry food to them and they turned out just fine, keep feeding them in the bottle for a couple more weeks and then slowly introduce them to dry food and if that doesn't work use science diet kitten food the and mix the dry food in .Good Luck and I hope you have fun with kittens that its a really delight.

Answer 4

If they're eating and drinking they won't starve. My cats weren't bottle fed but after they were done nursing they went straight to dry cat food and they were fine.

Answer 5

mom doesnt go from nipple to saucer overnight, and neither should you.

it takes mom weeks to wean. she starts at about 2 weeks old. she starts spending less time with them. when they start eating solid food, she starts cutting back on nursing.

bottle feed about half as much as normal at one feeding, then offer solid food. after about a week of that, cut out one feeding entirely. and so on.

they will scream,i mean SCREAM, long before they starve.

just like mom, you have to pay attention, if you cut back too much on nursing, you have to back up a little. but if you dont leave them a little hungry, they wont eat the solid food.

Answer 6

I don't think they'll starve since you said they eat wet food and lap up the formula! It sounds like you're doing it right. Mix wet kitten food with the formula. They will learn eating from a dish is the only way they'll get food. I would be worried if they didn't eat anything at all. Best of luck!

Answer 7

This is a really old trick and it should work.  Remember the baby food in the box that you mix with milk for babies?  Mix that with the kitten milk from the vet or pet store and warm it up.  They seem to like that and it has the vitamins etc. that they need.  

My mother used to do that and it worked out well.  It's a little messy, but they get the drift really quick.

Once they start eating that, mix kitten food (wet down the dry food), and mush it up with a fork and they should be good to go.  Good luck!