Introducing a new born to another queen

Hello everyone .. Im new here. I have been fostering orphened kittens for some time now. Presently I have a queen who has 4 kittens of her own .. they are almost seven weeks and she has pretty much weened them off. I just recently received two little ones .. maybe about 7 days old. I have been bottle feeding the two little ones but this is proving to be an issue. One has already passed from having sever diarrea. Dispite sub q fluids and tiny amounts of antibiotics .. pedialyte etc .. his little body failed. The other baby I would like to start having him nurse off of the queen. She is accepting of this but Im not too sure if she still is producing milk. The older kittens are still suckling on her so I am assuming she has milk. I normally dont have a queen to be able to do this with. Is this ok?? How can I tell if she is producing milk?? Any advise would be great.

This year alone I have raised about 25 babies .. and have only lost two. That doesnt include this queen and her four. I just want this little guy to have a fighting chance.
Thank you so much
Laura

Laura....I'm going to ask that your post be moved to Pregnant cat and Orphaned kittens as that is a more appropriate section for your question

Katie

You can do this but you do need to be sure that the mom and the new kitten are both FeLV free. Otherwise one is likely to give it to the other since moms and nursing kittens exchange a ton of body fluid.

The easiest way to tell if the kitten is getting enough to eat is to weigh him daily. A healthy kitten should gain around .3 oz per day.

Milk does change in composition as the babies get older, though, and the milk this queen is producing will be less rich than the milk that would be made for a 1-week-old. This may or may not cause a problem. Just keep a close eye on the kitten's weight and supplement with a couple of bottles a day if needed. Just having a mom cat to take care of the kitten's need for warmth (and to handle potty duty!) will be a big help, and he will benefit from any amount of mother's milk he is able to get.

Hi Laura, welcome to TCS. semiferal has given you some great advice.

You sound like you're pretty experienced in the art of hand-raising kittens but www.kitten-rescue.com is a great resource if you need it.

TNR1 - Do I need to move the post or will it be redirected there??
semiferal - Thank you for the advice .. he is gaining even with his bout of the runs and bottle feeding. I guess I am just panicing since his brother passed.
Laura

Hey Laura....well, I did request the post be moved..but perhaps since you did receive a response here from SemiFeral the mods thought to leave it here. Sometimes it is hard to determine which forum is a best fit for a question. I don't think it would hurt to refererence your thread here over there and see if anyone else had any thoughts (although SemiFeral has given you a very good response) on the matter.

Katie