What To Give Newborn Kittens To Drink
Provide your kitten with milk in such a way that the experience is as similar to natural nursing as possible.
What to give newborn kittens to drink. Once the kittens are warm bottle feed them kitten milk replacement formula every 3 hours. Although water is essential to keep cats healthy and strong they don t need it straight out of the womb. To meet their calorie needs a newborn requires around 14 15 ml of kitten replacement milk per day. Newborn kittens are able to get all of the nutrition that they need from their mother s milk.
You can use tvm formula for example. You should also do this for any kittens that a mother cat is neglecting even if she s still around. Young kittens will drink their mother s milk until they are weaned. There should also be free access to fresh water for their mother and kittens will start to lap this too.
You ll also need to help the kittens use the toilet. From around 4 weeks of age they will start to explore solid food and drink more water alongside their mother s milk. At about three to four weeks old they can be offered milk replacer from a bowl and then small amounts of moistened kitten food four to six times a. If mama cat isn t around then a kitten milk replacer shall do too.
The natural composition of the milk of the mother cat changes within 72 hours after birth and starts to produce milk itself instead of colostrum. Can cats drink milk if they re orphaned. For the first few weeks of a kitty s life water is unnecessary. Use a damp washcloth or piece of gauze and wipe it across their genitals until clean.
Purchase a nursing bottle with a small niple and fill the bottle with milk or formula at body temperature never cold. These baby formula equivalents can be. The milk will be the only nutritional contribution that the newborn kittens will need until weaning. Should you find yourself raising orphaned newborn kittens during the critical first two months of life there are specially formulated kitten milk substitutes.