What Do You Feed Orphaned Kittens
When the orphaned kittens reach about 3 weeks of age you can start providing watered down meat based kitten food for them to nibble on.
What do you feed orphaned kittens. Orphaned kittens should be fed on a strict schedule preferably every 2 4 hours. Make sure you keep a fresh supply and not too much at one time. Kittens under three weeks old can t control their body temperature. The gruel should become less and less watery and dry kitten food should be introduced along with a bowl of water.
Caring for un weaned kittens kittens under 8 weeks old is a round the clock job just like with a newborn baby and depending on their age kittens must be bottle fed or syringe fed every 2 3 hours. Hold them upright or over your shoulder and pat their back. Week six feeding schedule by six weeks of age a kitten should be eating the gruel four times a day and nursing less. Under normal circumstances a kitten exclusively needs its mother s milk from birth to around four weeks of age.
Many veterinarians have incubators to warm a chilled kitten. You ll be able to tell a kitten is hungry if she cries and wiggles around like she s hunting for a nipple. If you find a kitten who has no mother nearby then you have just found an orphaned kitten. If they are less than four weeks old you will need to bottle feed them with kitten milk replacement formula.
Kittens up to two weeks old can generally consume their daily intake in 4 5 meals per day. How to feed orphaned kittens the kittens will need to be burped during and after each feeding. Ask your vet to recommend the best formula for them. At the end of week six decrease meal times to only three times a day.
Feed the kitty approximately 8cc or 1 4 ounce of formula per ounce of his weight every 24 hours. Small breed kittens should be limited to 10 15ml per feeding during the first week of life in order to prevent diarrhea. This kitten now needs you to be their mother. Do not feed a kitten until it is warm since it can t properly digest when cold.
Remember to keep the kitty on his tummy while you feed him. Mix the wet food with water until it achieves a soupy consistency and consider warming the mixture before serving. Be sure to check back for the remaining posts on orphaned kittens. The kittens will feed every 2 3 hours around the clock during the first 2 weeks of life.
Until this time your kittens should not eat any solid food. It is okay though to syringe feed a few drops of 5 sugar water or to rub a little bit of karo syrup on the kitten s lips. Two week old kittens need you to bottle feed them stimulate them to go to the bathroom and make sure they are gaining weight they need to. Bottle or tube feeding needs to be done very carefully to prevent aspiration of the supplement with subsequent aspiration pneumonia or drowning.
They will need to be fed kept warm and protected by you the human.