Weaning my kitties

Hi

I have got two kittens, 4 weeks old and their mummy and am trying to get them onto solid food. Got them Whiskas Juniour and soaked it in water but there's no response! One just ate a bit but there's no habit of eating constantly or even looking for food. What am I to do? Am afraid that they will become thin and malnourished.

Thanks

They're too young to be weaned, yet.... I suggest you read up on kitten care. They have another ~4 weeks of nursing and should be allowed to nurse as long as mother cat will tolerate it.

Don't soak dry food. It's not meant to be soaked like that. Get canned food (preferably a canned kitten food) and add a little water or kitten formula to it to make it more soupy. Provide this once or twice a day, but still let them nurse.

For now feed the dry kitten food to the mother cat.


And in case you're trying to rush them off the mother cat so you can rehome them in a hurry. Kittens do best if they can stay with the mother till 12 weeks old. They learn proper cat social behavior in this time that helps prevent things like scratching and biting humans.

Oh that's great, the sites I read suggested weaning after four weeks, thats why I was worried. The cat family will never be seperated, so things will turn out fine then

Let mother cat work that out. Just be there to add extra help and nutrition for them.

Since you intend to keep the kittens I'm going to warn you of a problem you'll face in the near future. Go over to the behavior section and look at "please help" and "mother cat rejecting 5 month old kittens", you'll likely run into this issue, too. Mother cat, sometime after the kittens reach 3-4months of age, will decide that it's time for the kittens to move on to new homes. One way to help prevent this is to make sure everyone is spay and neutered before the kittens start to mature - this can be as early as 4 months old.
If mother cat isn't spay yet, that needs to be done soon as she will come into heat anytime now.

Feed mum in front of the kittens, and they'll copy her eating. Mine start eating at 3-4 weeks, it's not unusual for kittens to wait 5-7 weeks. So long as they are still nursing from mum they should be fine until they learn to eat properly.

I hope you'll be desexing mum and the babies, and keep mum inside as she'll likely come into heat again before the babies are fully weaned. The kittens can be desexed from 8 weeks (I get mine done at 10 weeks *registered breeder)

Got the mother injected with something, progesterone I think, that will prevent her from getting pregnant for the next four months. The kittens are into their fifth week now, so I guess there is time for them to get neutered.

Earliest a kitten can come into heat is at 4 months old. Don't wait till times up on mother cat, either. Get her done in the next month or two, it will keep things calmer in the household.

Mom should be spayed when the kits are 8 weeks old and don't let her outside or she will get pregnant when nursing.

I never introduce solid foods till 5-6 weeks old. Some kittens may be interested at 4 weeks, but that's not common.

Start with canned kitten food in lamb or chicken and mix with warm water and KMR to a thick soup. Then put some on a plate and do a one on one with the each kitten. Put some of the canned food on your fingers and let the kittens lick it off or gently push a bit into their mouth. They will spit it out a few times, but will eventually eat and swallow it - once you do this a few times, they will understand and take off on their own.

Then I line the kittens up around the plate and let them eat as much as they want.

Serve dry on the side (not watered down) for them to nibble on as they choose.

Depending on where you live, kittens can be altered as young as 8 weeks (2 months!) and by the time they hit 4-5 months they CAN reproduce. If the only cats they come into contact with are each other, this will not stop them. This includes the mother cat....