When can I start??

Hey All, So the kittens will be 4 weeks on Sunday and they sure are active!!! And I LOVE it!!!
I know that it is soon time to intro them to soft food, any tips on the best way to do so?? Do I mix with KMR so it's more milky at first??

Oh and the other thing is the litter training, I could not find any non-clumping kitty litter(only a HUGE BAG) so I bought a small bag of the Silica Beads, is this fine for the kittens?? Or should I have the regular litter but Non-Clumping?

Thanks in Advance

silica ingestion has been shown to cause cancer in some animals. I would prefer shredded newspaper.

As for the food, KMR is fine to mix, it might even help the transition if they are used to KMR.

My kittens actually started eating dry food first. I just put a dish of it close to their basket, which of course mama cat ate. After a while they got the idea and started stealing food out from under mama's nose. They were about 5 weeks old then. They basically ignored the wet food until they were closer to 8 or 9 weeks old. As long as they're still nursing I don't see any reason to add KMR to the food.

Go ahead and get the big bag of litter. Believe me, you'll use it all by the time the kittens are ready to graduate to clumping litter. A non-clumping clay litter is better than the clumping kind, or you could try one of the organic/biodegradable types. Kittens do try to eat the litter and you don't want it to be something that makes hard clumps in their tummies and causes a blockage.

My babies started on wet food at 26 days and have been digging in ever since, I water it down a bit with some warm water and as of the last 3-4 days I've been adding some crushed dry to help start transitioning them into some chewing. They are 37 days today and are eating wet two times a day, need to work in a third really but I work and can't offer a third wet meal during the day--but they always have dry available. They eat 3 ounces of wet a sitting--their are five of them--one is still nursing quite a bit though, precious Mace.

As for the potty, they are pros. Dont worry about a big bag I'm on my 2nd bag of 20 lbs non clumping and they've only been using the box for like 10 days. Between them and momma, two boxes-- it goes fast. And they still eat it even though they are using it! disgusting kids!

Leslie

Buy the big bag of non-clumping litter. If you don't use it for the kittens, put it in the trunk of your car in the winter. Clay cat litter works absolutely great for getting you out of ice in the winter. Throw some under the tires and it gives them traction. I assume you get a little bit of snow up in Alberta?

For switching to regular food - I start them by getting to lap KMR from a dish, then mix in wet food. If they aren't lapping from a dish, they aren't ready for regular food.