Getting kitten to drink water

I have a kitten approximately 5 weeks old. We just started her on canned food...max kitten. She will not drink water so I have been mixing her KMR formula with the food. Any suggestions on how to get her to drink water from a bowl?

....Due to the Young age of this kitten please take her to the vet to ensure there is not anything wrong...

Add extra water when mixing in the KMR

Canned feed kitties can actually get enough water from their food

If she's eating the food, I'd try mixing it with plain water instead of KMR. And/or if she's still drinking KMR in addition to starting to eat canned food, try diluting the KMR a little.

Do you know how to recognize dehydration in a kitten? The skin test can be hard in a little tiny one. With my little survivor kitten, who has miraculously made it to 16 weeks and 3 pounds, even my vet acknowledged that it was hard to tell because of how scrawny and underdeveloped he was during the time when dehydration was a recurring problem. I try to check hydration by feeling the gums: If they're smooth and slippery, the cat is adequately hydrated; if they feel tacky, the cat needs hydration. Of course with really tiny ones, it can also be hard to get a finger between their lips and their gums to feel for that.

My vet also told me to check the litter box, and if there was enough urine coming out, that meant there was enough water going in. Cats, being descended from desert animals, are designed to get most of their fluid from eating wet food rather than drinking liquid water.

That said--I can really relate to your concern about this! My kitten was about 4 weeks old, undersized and underdeveloped, chilled, and dehydrated when he was found abandoned back in May. During the first month or two, I'd say he got at least as much of his fluid intake subcutaneously as orally. (If you don't already know how to administer subcutaneous fluids, ask your vet to teach you and set you up with the sterile solution and needles and either tubing or a sterile syringe. It can be a handy skill to have if you foster and rehabilitate a lot of animals. Pay close attention to the vet's instructions about how much is enough and about sterile technique.)

It was a big relief when he finally began accepting water from a feeding syringe so I didn't have to keep sticking needles into him. This kitten never accepted formula or liquefied kitten food from any kind of bottle--and I tried several different kinds of small animal nursing bottles and nipple shapes and styles--but he was very enthusiastic about suckling from a syringe. See
So then there was this period that seemed like forever when I was syringing water into him several times a day. My vet told me how much he needed in total, and if I was able to get him to take that much orally, I didn't do the subQ. If he wouldn't take enough water by mouth, I would inject enough LRS to make up the deficit. And I would worry worry worry that he wasn't learning to drink on his own, even while I recognized that I probably wasn't giving him a chance to get thirsty enough to try drinking on his own. With the number of close brushes with death he had (nine vet contacts, including three emergency clinic visits and one intensive-care hospitalization, in the first eight weeks), I did not want to take any chances on letting him get dehydrated!

Since he was used to drinking from a syringe, I tried putting up a small animal water bottle for him, the kind usually used for hamsters and gerbils. He sniffed it once, got water on his nose, and never went near it again.

I also had a small shallow water bowl available to him at all times, and he got some of that up his nose too the first time he explored it, and avoided going near it for a while after that.

But then there came the moment, late at night when I was almost asleep, and it had been a few hours since his bedtime syringe-drink of water, when I heard a small sound in the dark. Could it be...? I sat up, turned on the light, and--YES!!!!! HE WAS LAPPING WATER FROM HIS BOWL!!!!!!!!

By this time he was getting all his water orally, and I hadn't had to use the needle for a couple of weeks. My vet gave me a schedule for gradually reducing the amount of water I gave via syringe, to see if he'd get thirsty enough to drink, without letting things go far enough to get dehydrated. We didn't need to follow the gradual reduction program for long, because once he finally got the hang of lapping without getting water up his nose, I was able to stop syringing entirely and just keep an eye on him to make sure I saw him drinking every day.

Hang in there. If my little guy could learn to drink, with all the challenges he faced, your kitty should get it much more easily.

dont forget cats are bigtime copycats. you may have to get crouch down on your
knees and start sipping from the water yourself as your kitten is beside you

i guarentee you will at least get cat stares

Ginger kitty wasn't too enthusiastic about water when I first got her back, even though she was dehydrated. My trick was chicken broth -- you need to look for the kind with low or now sodium, or make it yourself -- just boil some chicken in water then save the chicken for your own meals.

And jisincla -- When you said you were using LRS , are you referring to lactate-ringers solution? I have some in an emergency kit for humans here along with some needles etc, and was wondering if this was what I needed for sub-q.

Thank you all very much for the info on Missy drinking water. I have had her to the vet twice. When I found her she had a eye infection, so she was on antibiotics for 10 days. I did call the vet today and she said I was doing the right thing ( adding water or formula to the canned food) She also said its ok that she still wants the bottle sometimes, she refuses to eat the canned at times so I make her a bottle....she has me wrapped around her little paws lol.

SamhainBorn, yes, LRS is lactated ringers solution. Great if you already have some on hand. But still get your vet to teach you how, and how much, to administer to an animal. Too much can overstress the system and be dangerous. Also, the needles you have for humans may be too big for cats, especially small kittens.

Plus, even if you're used to giving subQ injections to humans, dogs, or rabbits, cats are a challenge. First, they have really tough hides--it is *hard* to puncture a cat. (Unless it's a tiny kitten, in which case the problem is that the needle pokes right through and out the other side of the skin pouch.) Second, cats begin ear-piercing screaming when the needle is still three or four inches away and hasn't touched them yet. Third, cats struggle and squirm and pull out the needle more than any other animal I've ever done a subQ injection on. Fourth, cats are more likely to injure and puncture the person doing the injection than any other animal I've ever injected.

It's definitely a good thing to have on hand, because it can be a lifesaver in an emergency. Have your vet teach you about amount and technique, make sure you have the right size needles for the size of animal you're caring for, and make sure your tetanus shot is up to date. ;-)

How's your kitty doing? I've been wondering all day.

I didn't mean to Hijack the thread, but I recognized that maybe some of my emergency supplies could double as kitty emergency supplies, and had to ask. I will definitely be giving my vet a call and asking about this when everyone gets rabies vacs on the 17th. It's kind of nice to know that some of the junk my hubby got from the Army might just be useful to have around.

Yes, having the skill of administering sub q to cats has come in handy many times over the years. I've sub q'd all my cats at one time or another, and several of my mother's too.