how to fatten up a kitten a little....

My fiance and I adopted an 8 week old kitten, Apricot, on Sunday. We had to take her to the vet yesterday because she's having problems with diarrhea. The vet took care of that by giving us some meds, but she also said that Apricot is a bit thin, and that we need to fatten her up a bit.

We gave her some wet food last night and this morning. She ate some, but not a whole much. My fiance is worried that a lot of the wet food may make the diarrhea worse.

So, my questions are: How do we fatten her up? Do we give her the wet food? Should we limit it? What if she doesn't want to eat much of the wet stuff? Any other thoughts?

Thank you everyone!

Originally Posted by ashlbee1964

My fiance and I adopted an 8 week old kitten, Apricot, on Sunday. We had to take her to the vet yesterday because she's having problems with diarrhea. The vet took care of that by giving us some meds, but she also said that Apricot is a bit thin, and that we need to fatten her up a bit.

We gave her some wet food last night and this morning. She ate some, but not a whole much. My fiance is worried that a lot of the wet food may make the diarrhea worse.

So, my questions are: How do we fatten her up? Do we give her the wet food? Should we limit it? What if she doesn't want to eat much of the wet stuff? Any other thoughts?

Thank you everyone!

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I personally don't think wet food has any bearing on diarrhea and do believe that wet food is much healthier for cats. Sharky is our resident expert but I would think to feed her a food specifically for kittens and let her have as much as she wants. Kittens will need to eat more often as their little tummies don't hold as much at one feeding. I would also suggest a kitten formula of dry food for free-feeding. Her diarrhea may also be caused by worms as most little ones are born with worms. You say the vet gave you medication for the diarrhea - was it worm medication?

I think if you let her have as much kitten formulated food as she wants, she will gain weight. She is still very young. She actually should not have been separated from her mom until 10-12 weeks but that's another subject for another time.

Thank you...I didn't think that the wet food could affect the diarrhea, but wasn't sure. We have a special kitten dry food we have been giving her, but were only able to find wet food that said it was good for cats or kittens last night-we wanted to start giving it to her last night, so we bought a can of that and plan to check the pet stores today(the pet stores were closed byt he time we were able to go look last night...)

The vet just gave us a basic medication that should help with the diarrhea, we are taking a stool sample to the vet today so they can check and find out if it's worms or whatnot.

And yeah, I've read that she shouldn't have been separated yet(Although I didn't read that till after we had her).

Thank you very much!

Other things you can supplement her with:
Plain meat baby food
KMR 2nd stage weaning formula
Kitten Glop

I used the 'glop' with my Ivory, I got her as a 4 month old, but she was small and sickly, the size of a two month old kitten and we needed her weight up for surgery.

I foster kittens for our local Animal Shelter and they have me give them canned goat's milk to fatten them up. It's easily digested in kittens and cats and really packs on the weight. Give them 50% goat's milk with 50% water.