Abandoned kittens *Update with picture*

[phoenixmama]

DH found 5 abandoned kittens outside his office building this morning. I'm guessing that they are 4-5 weeks old. I picked up some high quality canned kitten food for them...which they have been eating seemingly well all day. They are even using the litter box! Yay!

Anyway, I was wondering if anyone here thinks they are just find with canned kitten or cat food or if I should be giving some milk replacer as well. It's so sad, they all try to suckle the blanket that I put in with them.

 

[cassie]

You can make a perfectly acceptable formula for kittens by using five parts canned milk and one part water. Throw in an egg yolk for protein. If you can get them to suckle that would be great. Kittens that don't suckle enough as babies grow up to be cats that still want to suckle.

 

[rebecca10782]

Aww...That is so sad. Bless you for taking care of them. It would be best for them to give them a bottle to nurse on. We have a cat that was orphaned and he would nurse on our Golden Retriever's ears all the time

They were always wet

Our dog would get so annoyed and looked at us as if she were saying "Get him off meeeeeee." But she put up with it.

 

[insiderart]

Kitten pics!

 

[KattyKillFish]

oh wow, you are such a kind person! at that age they should be just fine with the canned kitten food, but you could mix a bit of canned milk with it.

i personally would use powdered milk, a strong mix of it. i had some really young kittens here and gave them powdered milk. they all have new homes now and from what i hear from the people who adopted them, they are all doing fine.

good luck with the little kitties!

 

[phoenixmama]

Quote:
I'll take some in the morning!

 

[hojo]

Awh that's very sweet of you. I'm glad your DH brought them home. If they are 4 or 5 weeks old you only have about another week before they will be doing "just fine"...

I'm glad that they were able to get the milk from the mother up until this point.

At about three to four weeks old, the kittens will gradually wean and begin to eat solid food, they are usually done with weaning by six to eight weeks. They will be fine on solid food after weaning, sometimes they continue to suck from time to time until separated from their mothers.

Good luck Mama!

 

[chickenlover95]

Hi there! I have been fostering bottle baby kittens for the past 7 years and I would say it is fine for them to just be on canned food. Yes, it is sad to see them suckle the blanket but they really don't need milk. Good luck with your kitties!!!

 

[thechickenchick]

Oh! I am such a sucker when it comes to orphaned kittens. I can't tell you how many I have taken in. Although my DH probably can!! He says it seems like there is always a chicken or a kitten living in our bathtub!

Bless you for taking this on. chickenlover is right they probably don't need milk but I thought I would share this recipe any way. I got it here from a fellow BYCer. It has been over a year so forgive me for not remembering who deserves the credit. I have fed this to tiny new born kittens as well(with a dropper) and it seems to work great. We have a batch of 6 cats that are almost a year old that I raised on this formula and they are very healthy and beautiful cats. (1 is an indoor cat and the rest are barn cats)

KITTEN FORMULA
2 cups milk
1 tsp corn syrup
pinch salt
1 egg yolk (I used whole egg)

 

[phoenixmama]

Here they are. It's hard to see, but there is actually four in the picture, the one is lying down behind the one on the left.