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So I adopted a feral cat and her one kitten. In a total lapse on my part, the cat escaped to the outside. She still comes around and accepts my offerings of food, but has no intention of returning to the inside of my house. I am not taking that personally and am still working on it. However, now I am left with the very young kitten to nurse every 3 hours.
I have the kitten formula, have spoken with my vet and researched it on the internet and all is going well. How many have bottle or syringe-fed a kitten. What do I have to look forward to? Any surprises in store for me? She/he is about 2 weeks old. No teeth and the ears have not started to stand up yet, but her/his eyes are open.
I have....the good news here is, if he/she is about 2 weeks...usually around 3 weeks they are able to lap milk up!
I take it, the vet worked with you on the correct calculated amt. of formula? The kitten will need to be fed 6-8 times a day. It's hard to know when they are full, but the belly should be firm and rounded but not hard. Overfeeding can cause some nasty diarrhea. Stool should be soft but formed...and he/she will probably go some 5 times a day. What goes in...comes out...usually right after feeding.
Bare with me...I'm trying to remember all the steps here..
Bottle feeding? Try and keep the kitten upright when feeding so the formula does not aspirate into the lungs. Holding the kitten like a human baby when feeding will allow the food to go into the windpipe...So hold the kitten upright...when feeding give just a slight tug on the bottle..to encourage feeding from the little one. And formula should be room temp. Too much, too fast, and it will all come back up. This is all taking for granted the kitten is strong enough to suckle the nipple? If not...he/she will not get the full nourishment it needs. And you'll have to go with a syringe or dropper.
Your going to have to monitor the weight. Too little and you'll have a failing kitten and it can happen very, very quickly.
I've done this several times and the advice given is excellent. Around 3 weeks or so, open up a can of wet cat food. Grab a large towel and put it on your lap. Carefully hold the kitten in a sitting position with its back against the crook of your arm. Using the fingers of your opposite hand, dig into the tin and pick up just a small amount of the food. With your other hand, gently open the kitten's mouth and pop the morsel in. The little one will do a big YUCK routine and spit out most of it over you but once a little bit goes down the taste buds get going and you can repeat this with a couple of other small pieces and you're on your way to successfully weaning.
Within no more than a day or two the baby will start lapping it up itself from a shallow saucer. Lapping is rather a euphemism and the reality is that the kitten will walk THROUGH the food, stick its face in the moosh and do a very messy slurping routine ...
At that age they can't clean themselves so that's your job. I run lukewarm water from the kitchen faucet and wash the baby off with a mild dishwashing detergent, rinse well, dry off with a nice fluffy towel and then put in a warm place (or use a hairdryer on low heat!)
Cats who have been hand-raised are VERY special and you will have an incredible companion for life. Congratulations and good luck!
Are you helping it elimanate? We had to raise some kittens and, after each feeding, we always held them over the sink and wiped their private parts with a cotton ball with warm water on it. They always peed and pooped when we did this. It simulates the way the mother licked them to clean them.
As another poster said, this kitten will be the sweetest thing, and so bonded to you.
Be careful with it, though, because kittens raised like this do not have any street smarts. Unfortunately, ours got hit by a car while he was out roaming.
I've done this several times and the advice given is excellent. Around 3 weeks or so, open up a can of wet cat food. Grab a large towel and put it on your lap. Carefully hold the kitten in a sitting position with its back against the crook of your arm. Using the fingers of your opposite hand, dig into the tin and pick up just a small amount of the food. With your other hand, gently open the kitten's mouth and pop the morsel in. The little one will do a big YUCK routine and spit out most of it over you but once a little bit goes down the taste buds get going and you can repeat this with a couple of other small pieces and you're on your way to successfully weaning.
Within no more than a day or two the baby will start lapping it up itself from a shallow saucer. Lapping is rather a euphemism and the reality is that the kitten will walk THROUGH the food, stick its face in the moosh and do a very messy slurping routine ...
At that age they can't clean themselves so that's your job. I run lukewarm water from the kitchen faucet and wash the baby off with a mild dishwashing detergent, rinse well, dry off with a nice fluffy towel and then put in a warm place (or use a hairdryer on low heat!)
Cats who have been hand-raised are VERY special and you will have an incredible companion for life. Congratulations and good luck!
Thanks STT Resident for picking up where I left off!
LOL...I love your description of the first time they taste something other than their forumla....We call it the "yucky face"...as there is no other way to describe it!
Great tips here. I am using a syringe rather than a bottle because that is what I had on hand and the kitten can suckle from the tip as my syringe was designed for nursing a baby animal very specific amounts of nutrients. The kitten takes about 15cc at every feeding.
Good to know my job may be done in another week. Although the feedings are easy and go rather quickly, I really don't want to get stuck nursing a kitten that just doesn't want to grow up. I made that mistake when I hand fed a baby parrot. The darned thing was in full feather and could fly across the room, but wanted to eat formula from a syringe!
I had heard that kittens that are hand fed formula develop a unique bond with the person doing the hand feeding. I was hoping that was more truth than rumor. I have already seen that right before my eyes. When the feral mother cat returned the first time, I tried to lure her to me using the kitten. I was also hoping the kitten would at least be able to nurse from its mother at least once a day. But when I put the kitten near the mother, the kitten turned from its natural mother in favor of being close to me.
Don't hesitate to start the weaning early. You're going to get messy anyway and it only takes them a couple of feedings and yucks to get the hang of it and then life becomes so much easier. I was fortunate with my latest foundling as she had two older "sisters" to help care for her and they rallied around beautifully and soon took the cleaning routine off my hands.
When you have time, see if you can trap the mother and get her fixed. Our Humane Society rents out traps for a minimal fee, the vets help me out with spay and neuter fees for ferals and rescues and there's bound to be some organization in your area who'll help you out if necessary. The Mom will probably become more sociable in time but it does take a while and, in the meantime, you can at least save her from producing more.
Sounds as though you have everything under control and are doing a great job. Cheers!
I have a live trap I can use to catch the mom, but would rather do it with luring methods. I don't want her to distrust me any more. My original plan was to get her spayed and that is still the goal. I can't afford to spay all the strays I find, but I opted to take care of this one this time. I think she'll be a nice cat some day.
I have a live trap I can use to catch the mom, but would rather do it with luring methods. I don't want her to distrust me any more. My original plan was to get her spayed and that is still the goal. I can't afford to spay all the strays I find, but I opted to take care of this one this time. I think she'll be a nice cat some day.
Within a couple of months, Feral Mama Kitty is going to be knocked up again and it's doubtful that by that time you'll have her sufficiently socialized to the extent that you can pick her up and put her in a carrier.
If it works, great, but I could write a book on my rescues and can tell you with some first-hand authority based on several years experience that the attempted socialization of a feral female is a very long-drawn out process. My outside feral Mummy had three litters before she totally trusted me and when I finally took her to the vet on that trust she was pregnant again but was spayed and the little embryos were discarded.
She's now about 14 years old, is a total sweetheart and dotes on her two remaining girls who are big fat (of course spayed) outside cats and who have respectively reached the age of 9 and 10. You can't save them all but you just do what you can do. Cheers!
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