What To Feed Orphaned 4 Week Old Kittens
Once they start eating food as it comes from the.
What to feed orphaned 4 week old kittens. To get them to try place a small amount on your fingertip and let them smell it. Below are some of the best foods for your young kittens. At two weeks old they can be fed every 4 6 hours. Kittens up to two weeks old can generally consume their daily intake in 4 5 meals per day.
From when they are 3 weeks old young kittens are usually encouraged by their mother to stop suckling and start eating other kinds of foods. By the end of week 5 a kitten should only be nursing three times a day but at each meal it should be consuming about 3 tablespoons of milk or formula. Orphaned kittens should be fed on a strict schedule preferably every 2 4 hours. A kitten aged between six to 10 weeks old needs to be fed six to eight meals a day while a kitten aged 10 weeks to six or seven months needs four meals a day and a kitten up to nine months needs three meals a day.
At their fourth week they should be eating primarily a gruel mixture. It s also important to monitor the kittens while they are eating as they are unsteady and can fall head first into the food. Weigh the kittens daily to calculate the amount of formula they need using a kitchen scale or small postal scale. Try to make the gruel in the same consistency as oatmeal.
Once softened mix it with milk replacement formula. Kittens who are extra weak or recovering from a. During weeks 4 and 5 a kitten will slowly increase how much food it consumes in a meal. To make one by yourself you can easily mix the kitten food both dried and wet with water or milk.
3 food to feed kittens 4 weeks old. 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. Note that it s not until adulthood that two meals a day for a cat is acceptable. To make the gruel using high quality dry kitten food you must let the kitten food sit in warm water for a while.
Weeks four and five feeding schedules. After three weeks old and until they are weaned kittens should be fed every 6 8 hours. Feedings will occur less frequently and a bowl of formula or other liquid kitten food should be made available for a kitten to start drinking from. By the time they are 4 week old then they would already eat gruel as their primary food.
Kitten that still has their mother will be encouraged to eat other kind of food even when they are still 3 week old. Additionally clean the kittens fur in short strokes with a damp cloth when they ve finished eating. Later you should start using automatic cat feeders to feed your kittens. After feeding the kittens you ll need to wipe their genitals with a damp cotton swab to encourage them to urinate.
Make sure you keep a fresh supply and not too much at one time. You should also wash your hands before and after handling the kittens so you don t get them sick. Once they come closer slowly move your finger toward the food bowl. Small breed kittens should be limited to 10 15ml per feeding during the first week of life in order to prevent diarrhea.
Divide their needed daily intake by the number of required daily feedings and you ll know how much they should eat each time.