Weaning help

I'm new to the site and a new cat owner. As all of you probably know, Hurricane Gustav just ripped through Louisiana and Baton Rouge. My girlfriend and I went by her apartment during a break during the storm to make sure there wasn't any water getting into her apartment. When we were leaving, a friend of mine yelled out for us to stop and ran over to a puddle. We all went over and there was a baby kitten in the puddle surviving all by itself with only his head out of the water. We obviously picked him up and named him Gustav (Gus for short lol), and the next day went to the LSU Vet center for an emergency visit to see how he was and if he was OK.

We got some KMR for him and have been feeding him for a while. He is, by all guestimates, 4-5 weeks old. He has gotten very playful, has been running around more, rolling around and playing with everything, and actually just the other day, climbed up the bedskirts/sheets/comforter on my bed to get onto my bed to wake me up so that he could get something to eat He has quite a bit of teeth now and getting sharper and bigger by the day so I have started him on wet cat food. He seems to like it a lot and actually caught on VERY quickly (except that I think he is "sucking" the food in instead of licking/eating). I still give him a little bit of formula to give him some water (sometimes I just give him water) and it works.

Now for my question. How do I wean him to drink by himself? He wont even get close to water in a saucer and seems to just turn his head when I put the water on my finger. I don't know if he has learned how to lick yet (he has learned how to bite though!). I was wondering what I could do to make it more appealing to him. I have warmed up the water and the formula and put it in a mayo jar lid (clean of course!) which is what he easts out of, also. Any help would be appreciated. I'll post up some pictures in the picture forum and put a link in this thread.

Thanks in advance!!

I'm going to move this to the Cats & Kittens Forum as the folks there may be more help to you than in this forum.

Originally Posted by Yosemite

I'm going to move this to the Cats & Kittens Forum as the folks there may be more help to you than in this forum.

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haha sorry about that. I didn't scroll down far enough to even see that forum :embarrassed:

Originally Posted by LSUguscat

haha sorry about that. I didn't scroll down far enough to even see that forum :embarrassed:

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No need to be embarrassed. We often move threads around for folks if we think they might get better answers from other forums where the folks have some experience with the issue.

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If you're little one is eating wet food, he's getting enough water through that. My Teddy didn't start drinking water on his own until he was 9 weeks old. It really freaked me out at first, until I found out it was normal. I found out that cat's don't have a natural thirst drive. Give him time. Between the KMR and wet food, he's getting enough.