What To Feed Newborn Kittens By Hand

The natural composition of the milk of the mother cat changes.
What to feed newborn kittens by hand. Cow s milk is also unsuitable. Tube feeding is perhaps the cleanest and most efficient method of hand feeding. A newborn kitten can only digest milk and more specifically the milk from a female cat. A 2 to 3 week old kitten will still need to be fed every 2 3 hours and it should consume at least 1 2 tablespoon of formula or milk during each meal.
Newborn kittens have a delicate stomach and won t be able to digest average milk. This is available from most vets and reputable pet shops. Depending on its size and condition your newborn kitten will need approximately nine to 12 daily feedings. Queen s milk is highly digestible and very calorie dense.
Bottle feed the kitten. The liquid is more convenient and less prone to clumping but it is less economical than powdered formula since an opened can has a very short lifespan and must be thrown out within days. Feeding the wrong sort of milk such as cow s milk can have short term and long term effects including diarrhea dehydration nutritional deficiencies and long term health problems due to poor growth. However it requires proper equipment and technical skill.
Compared to cow s milk queen s milk contains more than twice as much protein which helps explain why cow s milk is not ideal for feeding orphaned kittens. The energy requirements of the kitten are estimated to about. Commercial kitten milk replacers are recommended as they are superior to cow s milk and home made mixtures. For malnourished or orphaned kittens.
Kmr milk replacer a commercial formula comes in both liquid and powdered varieties for hand feeding newborn kittens. Artificial milk should be the food that best meets a kitten s needs. Kitten puppy milk from the supermarket is not suitable. How to bottle feed your newborn kittens.
Some of the best kitten milk replacement formulas are nutri vet hartz just born nurturall c and pet lac. Therefore you will need to purchase kitten milk replacement kmr formulas to feed the baby kitten. It is a particularly useful technique when a kitten s suck reflex is poor or when kittens fail to suck properly. If a kitten is nursing from its mother you ll have to depend on how much the kitten weighs to know whether or not it is consuming enough food.