Kitten won't come off milk

moonlightvixen

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Hello everyone.  I'm a little frustrated at this point and I can't find anything online to help.

My kitten, La Bunnie, is about 7-8 weeks old now.  She was the only kitten born in her litter, the other kitten wasn't fully developed yet.  She was a preemie and is still very small.  After about 1-2 weeks her mother stopped feeding her.  It actually took me a couple days to realize she wasn't getting any more milk and I began bottle feeding her.  She's been drinking her milk out of a bowl for about two weeks now.  She's learned how to use the litter box and is extremely loving and playful.  She's almost mastered taking a full bath but she doesn't seem to like to clean herself down there.  Her father has done a good job of teaching her basics of how to be a cat and plays with her a good bit.

Also, her name is La Bunnie because of the way she hops.  It is literally like a rabbit.  I used to call her Little Bunny but my roommate's son could only get out La Bunnie so we just kept it.  It's fitting, though.  I love this little girl but KMR is getting expensive because she's eating more and here's about everything I've tried:

Adding water to dry kitten food

Adding milk to dry kitten food

Wet food

Wet food/ dry food

Different kinds of wet food

Draining a small amount of tuna water onto dry food

She doesn't drink a lot of water, and will only do so after I've just heated it up.

I know she was a preemie but I thought that she would be ready for real food at this point.

The litter before her had no problem eating dry food.  There were five of them and they all just dug right in to their mother's bowl without any fussing.  I had laid a tortilla down a couple weeks ago and when I turned around I found her vigorously noming on it.  It was adorable but I took it away.  She also tried to eat my roommates crackers.  But other than those two items, she isn't interested in people food.  I don't know what else to do or to try.

I'll also try to add a couple pictures of her if any of y'all want to see her. =) I love her so much.
 

Willowy

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Get some meat baby food (make sure it doesn't have garlic or onions. . .Beechnut or Gerber will be fine), and mix a very small amount into her formula. Well, first see if she likes it plain, if she does, yay! If she doesn't, just add the tiniest amount to her milk. Then every day, add a little more. Once it's more meat than milk, add a tiny amount of canned food. Work her up to it gradually like that. It's always worked for me!

You could just try doing that with canned food, but I think you'll see faster results with the baby food. Oh, and always keep a bowl of dry food out. She might get bored and start playing with it and decide it's yummy ;).
 

talkingpeanut

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She may be a bit delayed in development as well from being born premature. Slowly adding solids to her milk so that she can still lap it up might be best.

Will you consider having mom and dad spayed and neutered, respectively? It doesn't sound like this was a healthy litter, and mom can already get pregnant again. They'll be happier and healthier once it's done.
 
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