Orphaned 5 week old kittens

My aunts cat was hit by a car. She has 3 little kittens who are 5 weeks old, not eating hard food yet and they were still nursing. How do we go about starting them on hard food? Do they need milk replacer and feedings every two hours, like younger kittens? We've raised kittens from newborns before but didn't know if it was different starting with month old kittens.

kowshe said:

My aunts cat was hit by a car. She has 3 little kittens who are 5 weeks old, not eating hard food yet and they were still nursing. How do we go about starting them on hard food? Do they need milk replacer and feedings every two hours, like younger kittens? We've raised kittens from newborns before but didn't know if it was different starting with month old kittens.

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I hope you found your answers till now.   The need to give kmr every two hours isnt not the same, but still may be wise to begin with it, till you see they are going OK.  And build up from there.

You can entice them to lick from your fingers... kmr, goats milk.  Minced meat (not raw pork), baby food. Wet cat food...  all these are useful later on too.

Next step is to have shallow plates, and the food in them.  In the beginning they will wade through the food, not really recognizing what it is and what to do.  Untill the first one does catches, and the others will soon enough follow example.

Also, high time to get them a couple of  litter boxes.  Shallow pans of soemthing, so they have easy to climb aboard. NON CLUMPING litter!

And also, they shall have near to the litter box.  So either keep them confined, or have several boxes, one in each room.

Good luck, and please come back to report.

They need milk replacer in a kitten bottle every 3-4 hours. You can also put out kitten kibble, but they need to wean on wet food now as well as the bottle for at least a couple more weeks.

Give them a heating pad set on low and maybe a teddy bear to cuddle since they lost their mom. But they definitely need KMR.