Kitten Is 5 Weeks. What Now?

Greetings Fellow Cat Lovers,

My cat's newborn kitten is now 5 weeks old and there are two issues I could use your help with.

First issue is feeding. We've noticed the past four days that our 5 week old kitten Aja has been nibbling on her mother Brownie's food whenever we bring it into our room (which is where Aja has been so far). Basically me and my wife's bedroom is Aja's "nest". So is she ready to be weened or introduced to kitten food? If so, what are your recommendations and advice for making sure we do not give her the wrong thing?

Second issue; do you guys think it might be a good idea to allow Aja out of our bedroom now and let her explore the rest of the house (with supervision of course)? So far, we have a gate that her mom can jump over but is too tall for her to do so herself.

Thanks Guys.

Yes, she's at the age you should start introducing solid food. You can water down any canned cat food for her, but if you want special kitten food several brands do make canned food especially for kittens. Actually, at her age you might not need to water it down at all, especially since you've already seen her picking at her mother's food. It will take some messiness before she gets the hang of it :lol3:, and you might have to put her mother in a different room while feeding her---some mother cats want to eat their baby's food.

You can let her out to explore as long as she's well supervised. Baby kittens can get themselves into dangerous situations pretty easily.

Hi Willowy,

Thank You for the kind advice.  The food that Brownie eats is moist. It's Fancy Feast Gravy Lovers. She loves it. The second half of her pregnancy we were mixing it with Paws Kitten formula and she was eating it just fine. But after she delivered five weeks ago she wouldn't eat the mixture and I haven't the foggiest idea why that is.

This morning I had made two separate bowls of food; one is the Gravy Lovers (Chicken Flavor to be exact) by itself and the other is Gravy Lovers mixed with the kitten food made by Paws which is a dry food. Aja and Brownie took to the Gravy Lovers dish on it's own and completely ignored the other dish.

After I see my kids off to school I'm going to give Aja an hour to explore outside of my bedroom and then try to give her more time this evening when I get home.

I will say this though; you are right about making sure she's supervised. She gets into everything and she's a handful.