get barn cats they said... it'll be fun they said...

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ohiogoatgirl

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No I don't have pics yet :roll: But I have three black kittens about a month old.
Long story short there was a bit of a feral cat depopulation happen here the other day. We made sure not to get the few that we knew had litters recently and the one female that could possibly be pregnant. With the porch no longer being run by the feral cat gang apparently the one mom decided it would be good to move her litter there.

Dad heard them as he was heading out to check the boiler (which is being shut down for the year tomorrow, thank heaven!). So off I go with a flashlight to traverse the jungle of crap that is the porch. IE: dad ends up piling lots of his crap there and somewhere in there was kittens mewing loudly.
I managed to get to the old crate where the kittens were without injuring myself. Even wrangled them and got back to the door without injury! Not a bet I would have made :roll:

So now I have three kittens that are plenty fat. I am actually surprised at how well they are. the mother definitely had to run off and get bred by a roaming male. The farm feral cats here have a few colors we tend to get and that's it, black isn't one of them. That combined with their decent size and health sets it for me. 'Our' farm feral cats are pretty well inbred and are all little midget-y things that are always thin and no one would guess even the biggest one to be more than a year old. And they would probably say a small underfed year old at best.

Sooo... Now I get the lovely process of getting these little guys on solid food.

If anyone has any good tips for me I would appreciate them. This is the most annoying part of raising kittens and I always have problems with it. But its a lot better to wrangle them and do this by hand and get rid of tame kittens than have more, inbred, feral, unhealthy cats that need 'depopulated' later on.
 
Get them to drink from a dish and then mix the formula with dry food to very soft or a little bit with wet food and serve that in the dish. Not that hard if the kittens were mother raised until they are close to weaning. Sometimes skipping steps actually helps so you learn to play it by ear. One set of kittens would not take to formula so while sitting on the kitchen floor near the cat food area frustrated I just scooped up some wet food and shoved it in there the next time it screamed. They ate wet food from that day on and we never mixed more formula for them. Then I had this latest one that was bottle fed from 2 weeks and thought everything should be sucked in. I could not convert her to lapping from a spoon or dish and she'd bury her face in wet food until she was breathing the stuff. Finally I just gave her dry food barely softened. She went from formula to dry but she still needed part of her liquid from a bottle for a time because she took another month to figure out lapping water well enough. Now she stands in the cat fountain water and let's it pour in her mouth while getting her head soaked. They always come out a bit odd when not raised by a mother cat during the start of their lifespan.
 
I just go to Iams dry kitten food. The reason I like it is the pieces are small and not to crunchy. Its high in fat and even tiny kittens like it. I don't mess with wet food much unless you just want to chop up some meat and give that. Some wet foods in the can, make kittens poo really soft and icky. I would go to dry as soon as possible. I have used this even on two week olds that barely had their eyes open and they eat it fine. Sharp little teeth those kittens.
 
I broke up some of the regular cat food in my mortar (gee, seems to be the only time I use the thing) and wetted it with some milk. I pushed each kittens face into it so they know its there. currently they are mewing, ignoring the bowl, and trying to jail break from the tote.

I think I will get some cheap canned food at the salvaged good store if we go into town. usually have some for like 15cent or a handful for a dollar.

Thankfully one kitten is already spoken for. dads friend has two little girls and they want one when they are ready.
 
I have 7, 5 week old kittens that I have raised since birth. What I did to wean them, because they was having nothing to do with the softend kibble at first, :roll: I took canned food and mixed it with the formula they are used to eating until it was a soupy, milky mess. Even then it took some of the more stubborn ones a couple of days to eat it. I should say they was 4 weeks old when I did this, prior to that they wouldn't even touch the food. Now at 5 weeks they will eat the canned food without milk and are even eating the kibble dry.
 
Just so you know. cats are lactose intolerant. Cows milk will just give you problems. Just wet the food with water, or wet food.
 
cottage cheese mixed (or blended in a blender) with kibble is good for them, and is tolerated better than milk by pregnant cats & kittens. The extra protein & calcium is good for them. Make it thinner than you'd expect because it can be hard for them to "potty" when transitioning. If you have extra eggs you can mix that as well.
 
I have not gotten them on food at all yet. I am finely grinding up some cat food and guess I am going to put an egg in here and then water it down enough to get them to eat it through the syringe. I had no luck getting them to eat the wet mushy food from the bowl. completely ignored. I got them to take a bit of milk from the syringe though. I figure some milk is better than nothing at all.
so now to finish this and try again.
 
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