cpinatsi: How long does it take for a kitten to be fully weaned from the time it starts eating?
I am feeding some abandoned kittens with a bottle. Two of them have already started eating canned kitten food, but a little bit. They want some more milk afterwards. How long from now do they need until they are fully weaned? And until they start eating dry food for kittens?
Answers and Views:
Answer by klingon
2 months.
About a couple of weeks. Cats usually start on solid food from about 4 weeks of age and are fully weaned between 6-8 weeks of age.
You can probably stop giving your kittens milk after a couple of weeks. Keep in mind that kittens that stay with their mother may continue to suckle indefinitely if she lets them, up to a year of age and beyond in some cases! They don’t do it because they need the milk, they do it for a comfort thing. By 8 weeks of age your kittens certainly shouldn’t need milk anymore.
You can wean them on to dry kitten food once they’re fully weaned onto solids – just mix sprinkling of dry in with the canned and gradually increase. Or, offer them kibbles soaked in water, they may take to this straight away, and then you can gradually decrease the water in it.
Chalice
Answer by Charlieonecat“Feeding
Kittens may be fed by bottle or stomach tube. The stomach tube is faster, but many people enjoy bottle-feeding kittens. Your veterinarian or clinic staff can instruct you in either method.
Newborn kittens should be fed 6-8 times daily. The frequency
should be gradually reduced to 3-4 times daily by 2-3 weeks of age.
Kittens must be helped to urinate and defecate by gently stroking the genital area with a cottonball or tissue moistened with warm water after each feeding.
Constant crying and failure to gain weight indicates a problem.
Call the doctor. “
Wish that there was a simple answer but it varies with each kitten and each mother. I have a cat now that the mother nursed for nine months. This is highly unusual, more rightly very rare. The standard time is 7-9 weeks. If after the kittens are over 9 weeks old and they do not want to be weaned try for a couple of weeks more, and remove the bottle letting them have nothing but cat food. At 9 weeks or at weaning the kittens teeth are sharp enough for dry kitten food.Answer by Kit_kat
I don’t feed can food I often have found it hard to switch them to dry.
What I do is get a good quality kitten dry food like Purina kitten chow, and I moisten it to a soup consistency.( you can either use water or milk replacement)
The way I start is make sure they get a good bottle feeding just before bed. I don’t get up through the night and first thing in the morning I give them the moistened food and leave it down for about 15 minutes then I will give them a bottle.
do this at every feeding.
They should be about 4 weeks.
then as they get use to eating slowly make it thicker.
at 6 weeks I start to put some hard not soaked food in with the moistened and I also leave a small amount of just dry food down so they can begin to nibble on it and I also start to leave water down for them.
they should be fully on solid dry food between 7-8 weeksAnswer by navy_brat54
i think about 7-8 weeks
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