Harley's extra feeding

Harley seems to be the runt of the litter. He is about 3/4-1/2 the weight/size of the other kittens. Today I gave him a special feeding of warmed canned food mixed with kmr he is 3 1/2 weeks old and this is the first time he has eaten on his own.




Dirty face

I am pretty worried about Harley now. He seems very tiny compared to the others. He also isn't as active as the others. I am going out later to get a bottle to see if he will accept extra feedings. Should I worry about him being so much smaller?

IMO, his eyes aren't right. Is he on any meds?

I advise having your vet take a look at him....just to be safe.

A couple of them have eye infections so I got some eye ointment from the vets which I have been applying. I didn't really want to take them to the vets since they are so tiny and have no immune systems yet.

Does Harley show any signs of dehydration? How much does Harley weigh? I had a foster kitten that was smaller than her litter mates, and although he otherwise seemed healthy I was concerned. Turned out he was normal and the others were just huge!

Here is a chart I have of normal weight ranges... keep in this is just an average... of course it varies by individual cat/breed.

These ranges are from two different sources...

birth ~ 3 - 4 oz
day 1 ~ 2 1/2 - 4 3/4 oz
day 5 ~ 3 - 7 oz
1 wk ~ 6.7 - 7.4 oz
day 10 ~ 4 1/2 - 9 3/4 oz
2 wk ~ 9.5 - 10.9 oz
day 15 ~ 6 - 11 3/4 oz
day 20 ~ 7 1/2 - 14 1/2 oz
3 wk ~ 13 - 14.8 oz
day 25 ~ 8 - 16 3/4 oz
4 wk ~ 16.9 - 18.7 oz
5 wk ~ 20.2 - 22.2 oz
6 wk ~ 24 - 26.4 oz
7 wk ~ 27.9 - 30.3 oz
8 wk ~ 31.3 - 35.2 oz

The pictures of Harley eating are adorable. I hope your concerns are nothing more than manic-mom-syndromitis.

Thanks for the help! They will be 4 weeks old on monday so they are 25 days old.
Here are the weights:
Harley: 10.5 oz
Punky: 13.7 oz
Roxie: 15.3 oz
Amelia: 17 oz

I guess he is at a fairly normal weight going by your chart. What do you think? He isn't dehydrated from what I can see his skin bounces right back when I pinch it and his gums are nice and pink. His belly is much more round than it was after I gave him his extra feeding. He is a little skinnier than I would like I feel more rib and backbone on him than the others but not much.

Originally Posted by Lindsey88

Thanks for the help! They will be 4 weeks old on monday so they are 25 days old.
Here are the weights:
Harley: 10.5 oz
Punky: 13.7 oz
Roxie: 15.3 oz
Amelia: 17 oz

Click to expand...

I was going back through my records and the same litter that had 3 huge kittens with one normal sized kitten weighed in at:
18 oz
18 oz
16 oz
13.5 oz

Also at the same time (3 years ago) Kim (Kluchetta) had a litter of kittens at 3-weeks that weighed in at:

#1 - 8.9 oz
#2 - 7.4 oz
#3 - 7.2 oz
#4 - 7.1 oz
#5 - 6.9 oz
#6 - 6.6 oz
#7 - 6.0 oz
#8 - 5.0 oz

So all your guys have those beat... of course she had a large litter so obviously [read:hopefully] they would be smaller on average. But you can see how much weights can vary in just one litter. I think as long as your Harley is eating, keeps gaining and appears healthy, you have nothing to worry abuo