Sarah asked:
We are suppose to be getting a kitten from friends, but she and her 3 brothers refuse to eat kitten chow mixed with water and cat milk, they are 7 weeks old, and should be eating food by now! They still want to suckle on their mom. We’ve tried putting food down and only one kitten responded. We have them drinking kitten milk, but they refuse to eat food. We don’t want to take her home before she’s ready. Does anyone have any advice on how we can get the kittens interested in kitten chow?
I don’t think I put in enough info in my original question. The kittens have been given canned cat milk, and they will lick that, they will not, however, eat kitten chow mixed with water/cat milk, nor will they eat any of the canned kitten food that is put out. We have tried different brands of kitten chow and canned food, we have tried mixing the kitten chow in various liquids, they just aren’t interested. So, we are needing advice on how to encourage them to eat something other than their mothers milk.
Question posted courtesy of: Caffeinated Content for WordPress
We are suppose to be getting a kitten from friends, but she and her 3 brothers refuse to eat kitten chow mixed with water and cat milk, they are 7 weeks old, and should be eating food by now! They still want to suckle on their mom. We’ve tried putting food down and only one kitten responded. We have them drinking kitten milk, but they refuse to eat food. We don’t want to take her home before she’s ready. Does anyone have any advice on how we can get the kittens interested in kitten chow?
I don’t think I put in enough info in my original question. The kittens have been given canned cat milk, and they will lick that, they will not, however, eat kitten chow mixed with water/cat milk, nor will they eat any of the canned kitten food that is put out. We have tried different brands of kitten chow and canned food, we have tried mixing the kitten chow in various liquids, they just aren’t interested. So, we are needing advice on how to encourage them to eat something other than their mothers milk.
Question posted courtesy of: Caffeinated Content for WordPress
Well for one the kittens are smart! Maybe they know that the stuff you want to feed isn’t good for them and very poor quality
Nutrition since there are so many bad things out there is very important to your cat’s health
Contrary to what you may have heard, dry foods are not a great thing to feed a cat.
Dry foods are the number 1 cause of diabetes in cats as well as being a huge contributing factor to kidney disease, obesity, crystals, u.t.i’s and a host of other problems. The problems with it are that they are loaded with carbohydrates which many cats (carnivores) cannot process. Most of the moisture a cat needs is gotten
out of the food and 95% of it is zapped out of dry foods in the processing. Also, most use horrible ingredients and don’t use a muscle meat as the primary ingredient and use vegetable based protein versus animal. Not good for an animal that has to eat meat to survive.
You want to pick a canned food w/o gravy (gravy=carbs) that uses a muscle meat as the first ingredient and doesn’t have corn at least in the first 3 ingredients if at all. Fancy feast is a middle grade food with 9lives, friskies whiskas lower grade canned and wellness and merrick upper grade human quality foods.Also, dry food is not proven to be better for teeth. Please read about cat nutrition.
Try a different food ??
I am fostering 5 four week old kittens for a animal shelter. I am starting to mix a little canned kitten food with t heir formula (it is real soupy like) so that they can learn how to lap up the food. Then I will gradually add the canned to moist kitten chow. Then to just the kitten chow dry as they get older. You can try it and see if it will work for you. The kittens should be completely weaned off their mom by 8 weeks.
Take some of the kitten chow, soak it in water and make it into a mush. Take a tiny bit of it and stick in under their nose so they lick it off. If they take the bite, let them lick it off of your finger and then give them some of the mush on a small plate.