Expert: Ali - 12/1/2011

Question
We have four five day old kittens an i read the condensed milk theory an thts awsom...only one wont feed..but she will with the bottle of the kitten milk from pet smart.. The thing is with the condensed milk is about a year ago my sister found a kitten and he was yound an scronny..he was starvin..well my mom fed it condensed milk an they gave the kitten to us (my wife and I) an we fed it the condensed milk and it was actualy killing the kitten whos name now is rocky.. He would gasp for air and you could tell he was dieing.. Well i have ptsd which makes me upset real easy...cause i thought he was dieing.. I called the local vet and they said not to feed it the condensed milk cause it was to sugary..well i guess my question is..is it gonna be ok to mix tht condensed milk in all tht stuff?? I just dnt kw if i can handle this kitten dieing cause it would kill me an i would prob end up in the military physc unit again..please asure tht she will be ok with tht condensed milk in tht mixture.

Answer
Matt,

I wouldn't recommend feeding condensed milk... It has too much lactose, not enough fat or protein for kittens of this age... My recommendation would be either a kitten milk replacer (buying powdered is cheaper and just as good as long as you mix it properly) or if you're on a tight budget full fat goat's milk with about a 1/4 tsp of plain full fat yogurt added to it  for each feed will do...

It's important to keep a close eye on the weights of each kitten in the litter on a daily basis when you're having to hand rear them so if you have a digital kitchen scale that measures in grams or ounces start weighing the kittens daily... Mark the weights down so that you can easily see if they are gaining or losing weight. If they're losing weight then you may have to see a vet about learning how to tube feed - if they are gaining weight and continuing to pee, poop, grow and they seem satisfied everything's good.

I know that this will be tough to hear but I don't want you to be shocked... You can do absolutely everything right with these babies and still lose one or more. Their best chance of survival really is for their mom to raise them, if that's not possible then a good second choice option would be to have a lactating mommy cat from your local shelter as a foster kitty to see if she'll agree to take these babies on - they can nurse from her and get the same care that their mom would give them... I'm going to do absolutely everything that I can to help you help these babies, but sadly orphans have a much lower survival rate than kittens who have a mama cat to care for them...

Please feel free to contact me again at any time with any further questions or concerns you might have - I'm more than happy to help in any way that I can (and I've raised more than my share of orphans - it's rewarding but it can be heartbreaking too)...

Kind regards,

Ali