Expert: Ali - 9/3/2008

Question
hey i have just got a 7 week old kitten and it currently will only drink milk we have tried it on a small amount of wet kitten food and dry kitten kibble but it just sniffs and walks away he is using his litter tray for urinating but not passed any thing else should i be worried or will he eat in his own time? he is playful and has a lot of energy also as a kitten would
thanks
Rachel

Answer
Rachel,

A 7 week old kitten is a little young to be away from his siblings and mom. I routinely recommend that kittens be allowed to stay with their mom and siblings for a minimum of 10-12 weeks to allow them to be completely weaned and have some degree of socialization. Important lessons are learned by each kitten in the litter during those first few crucial weeks. The kittens will tussle with one another to determine their place within the family, mom will teach the kittens how to accept limits and kittens will often learn bite inhibition just by playing with mom and the rest of their family. Bite inhibition is an important skill, when your kitten attacks a few toes or your foot during the middle of the night because he wants to play you'll understand the importance of kittens learning to understand limits and his mom and siblings teaching him that it hurts to be bitten. Often times kittens aren't quite completely weaned by this time. Mom may well have been nursing the litter and still providing some of their nutrition. You may find that your kitten responds better to the recipe that I use to help get younger kittens started on solid food. Since it seems that your kitten hasn't yet been properly introduced to solid foods and he may still have been getting a good amount of his nutrients from his mom and trying commercially produced soft/hard kitten foods doesn't seem to have generated much interest here's something to try. You can give a kitten who doesn't seem to be willing to try crunchies or canned kitten food a mixture of weaning formula, pureed meat (commercially produced, meat based baby foods are fine for this purpose, but they are an expensive choice) and organic, unsweetened plain yogurt. I have had quite a good success rate with this and most kittens seem to grasp the idea of accepting solid foods much faster than they would with hard food or canned kitten food. Commercially available weaning formulas (KMR has one that is reasonably user friendly and the kittens seem to like it) provide extra nutrition for kittens that may have still been nursing. Pureed chicken is usually well tolerated and reasonably priced as the protein base for this kind of situation. The yogurt is simply to allow the kitten's naturally occurring beneficial bacteria normally found within the digestive tract to become balanced again and this will help to settle a case of diarrhea down. My recommendation would be to use one whole chicken breast that has been cooked in a small amount of boiling water. Remove the skin and bones after the chicken is cool enough to handle. Keep the water that you cooked the chicken in, you'll need it to mix with the powdered weaning formula. Follow package directions provided with the weaning formula except that you will be substituting the chicken broth from cooking the chicken for water. Cube the chicken and place it into the food processor or blender and add broth/weaning formula mixture. Puree, continue to add weaning formula until the puree is about the consistency of a thick gravy or slightly thin cooked cream of wheat. This recipe freezes well and keeps for about 6 months or so in the freezer, once frozen you can store the nutritious cubes for your little one in a ziploc bag for future use. You don't have to throw away leftovers from the introduction to solid food, most older kittens will eat this mixture eagerly as a healthy treat. This will allow you to make a slightly larger batch of this weaning mix and it's convenient in the sense that you can simply defrost the amount that your kittens need on a daily basis. If your little one refuses to lap the food up from a plate then you can feed this mixture with a a brand new oral syringe (found in the baby section of your local pharmacy). This mixture can be mixed with a high quality canned or crunchy kitten food to help ease the transition once your little one is readily accepting solid food. Most kittens aren't entirely weaned until they are 8 weeks of age and sometimes older depending on the queen's personality and level of patience with nursing young kittens. If your kitten will voluntarily lap up the recipe that I provided in addition to eating the crunchy kitten food he'll be getting plenty of nutrition to support his growth and development. It's a good idea to steer clear of cow's milk as it's really not meant to meet the nutritional needs of your kitten and he will most likely become lactose intolerant within the coming weeks. A commercially produced weaning formula is nutritionally balanced and designed specifically to meet the needs of newly weaned kittens.

It's important to realize that young kittens are vulnerable to viral and bacterial infections so it's a good idea to have anyone who is handling the little one wash their hands with hot, soapy water prior to touching the kitten. Your kitten should also see a vet as soon as possible to get vaccines and deworming started off.