What To Give Newborn Kittens To Drink

Although water is essential to keep cats healthy and strong they don t need it straight out of the womb.

What to give newborn kittens to drink. This is very time consuming for someone who is bottle feeding a newborn kitten so if at all possible you will want to try to keep the kitten with its mother or a surrogate lactating cat who can nurse it. Provide your kitten with milk in such a way that the experience is as similar to natural nursing as possible. Whole cow s milk isn t the best idea for nursing kittens because they are lactose intolerant. Purchase a nursing bottle with a small niple and fill the bottle with milk or formula at body temperature never cold.

Goat s milk has less lactose than cow milk. Diarrhea s a likely result. Newborn kittens are able to get all of the nutrition that they need from their mother s milk. Kittens that are bottle fed should consume about a tablespoon or 15 ml of special kitten formula at each feeding.

Young kittens those under 4 or 5 weeks old need to nurse from their mom to get nutrients and hydration. If she s not available or able to feed them you can feed orphaned kittens kitten milk replacement formula by a bottle. A newborn kitten can only digest milk and more specifically the milk from a female cat. Older already weaned kittens just need water to stay hydrated.

Failing that you may also give your kittens goat s milk. If the energy density of the lacto alternative is too low we will have to increase the number of shots given. The stomach capacity of a newborn is about 50 ml kg usually a single kitten absorbes about 10 20 ml of milk so the concentration of the replacement milk is essential to meet the kitten s needs.