- Joined
- Nov 12, 2020
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- Purraise
- 11
Hello,
I hope someone here can help me. In September, some friends of my daughter's in MD found a little black kitten in her backyard. She was very tiny and they waited and watched to see if the mother of the kitten would come back to pick her up. After several hours and no sign of the mother, the girls took the kitten in. Their vet said the kitten looked to be about 3 weeks old, and after testing, said the kitten didn't have worms (I don't know where this vet got his degree, but I digress). They started trying to take care of the kitten but it apparently didn't go well. When they found her, on September 11, she weighed just over a pound, which is in the upper ranges of weight for a 3 week old kitten, but, over the next three weeks in their care, she actually lost weight. I don't know exactly what they were trying to feed her, but they reported that the kitten had started vomiting up everything they tried to give her. After pleading online, my daughter convinced me to take the kitten in and try and save her. She went to see her friends and get the kitten, and found that they hadn't been feeding the kitten any milk replacer, and that what the kitten was vomiting was some adult cat food the little one had gotten into.
Needless to say, when we got her, she was in a bad way. Undernourished, with and eye infection, respiratory infection and vomiting. We started her on KMR immediately, along with jars of chicken baby food that she loved. That kind of diet got her to quit vomiting and she started gaining weight. We also had to treat her for fleas (something the girls never treated) and worms (something we were told she didn't have) and the respiratory and eye infections. I legitimately thought we were going to lose her the first couple of nights, but she is now over 3 lbs and way more active and feisty than the girls claimed she was with them. I expect she's finally feeling well enough to cavort!
Now, to my problem. Obviously, the kitten was weaned too early, and obviously, she reacted badly to the adult food that the girls who found her were feeding her. She's done well on a diet of KMR and human baby food, but she's of an age now (10-11 weeks) where she ought to be moving on to a solid type of food. And there's the problem. Every time we've tried her on any type of solid food, even wet canned, she vomits it back up. We have tried the following; Hill's Science Diet Kitten, both ground up and soaked in KMR and dry, Little Friskies kitten wet, wet pate cat food (also little Friskies, I think) and now we have her on Science Diet AD, recovery diet. The only things she doesn't throw up is the baby food and the Science Diet AD food. We've also tried a tiny piece plain cooked chicken and she threw that up too.
While she does race around like a maniac, the vomiting isn't happening right after running, in fact, she usually throws up after resting, like she did last night, after licking a little bit of butter off a dinner plate and falling asleep on my chest.
We've had the vet xray her and he can see nothing amiss in her digestive system. No blockages, nothing congenital, she looks totally normal for an 11 week old kitten. He doesn't know what could be causing her issues, especially since they seem to be more texture based than substance based - we were grinding up the Hill's for a while and that stayed down until she got to the chunks at the bottom of the bowl - and she's been fine with ham, chicken or turkey baby foods.
I'm at a loss. We have other cats in the house and it's hard to keep the dry food the older cats get away from this increasingly active kitten. I also don't want to have to keep buying Science Diet AD at $62 a case! Has anyone ever heard of a kitten that was weaned too early reacting this way to solid food? One of my coworkers mentioned she had heard something about kittens weaned too early having issues with solid food, but she wasn't big on specifics. Has anyone heard of this and has anyone found a resolution? I am hoping she grows out of this behavior as she gets bigger, but in the meanwhile, it's a total hassle. As I told the little kitten, Trinket, - it's a good thing she's cute...
I hope someone here can help me. In September, some friends of my daughter's in MD found a little black kitten in her backyard. She was very tiny and they waited and watched to see if the mother of the kitten would come back to pick her up. After several hours and no sign of the mother, the girls took the kitten in. Their vet said the kitten looked to be about 3 weeks old, and after testing, said the kitten didn't have worms (I don't know where this vet got his degree, but I digress). They started trying to take care of the kitten but it apparently didn't go well. When they found her, on September 11, she weighed just over a pound, which is in the upper ranges of weight for a 3 week old kitten, but, over the next three weeks in their care, she actually lost weight. I don't know exactly what they were trying to feed her, but they reported that the kitten had started vomiting up everything they tried to give her. After pleading online, my daughter convinced me to take the kitten in and try and save her. She went to see her friends and get the kitten, and found that they hadn't been feeding the kitten any milk replacer, and that what the kitten was vomiting was some adult cat food the little one had gotten into.
Needless to say, when we got her, she was in a bad way. Undernourished, with and eye infection, respiratory infection and vomiting. We started her on KMR immediately, along with jars of chicken baby food that she loved. That kind of diet got her to quit vomiting and she started gaining weight. We also had to treat her for fleas (something the girls never treated) and worms (something we were told she didn't have) and the respiratory and eye infections. I legitimately thought we were going to lose her the first couple of nights, but she is now over 3 lbs and way more active and feisty than the girls claimed she was with them. I expect she's finally feeling well enough to cavort!
Now, to my problem. Obviously, the kitten was weaned too early, and obviously, she reacted badly to the adult food that the girls who found her were feeding her. She's done well on a diet of KMR and human baby food, but she's of an age now (10-11 weeks) where she ought to be moving on to a solid type of food. And there's the problem. Every time we've tried her on any type of solid food, even wet canned, she vomits it back up. We have tried the following; Hill's Science Diet Kitten, both ground up and soaked in KMR and dry, Little Friskies kitten wet, wet pate cat food (also little Friskies, I think) and now we have her on Science Diet AD, recovery diet. The only things she doesn't throw up is the baby food and the Science Diet AD food. We've also tried a tiny piece plain cooked chicken and she threw that up too.
While she does race around like a maniac, the vomiting isn't happening right after running, in fact, she usually throws up after resting, like she did last night, after licking a little bit of butter off a dinner plate and falling asleep on my chest.
We've had the vet xray her and he can see nothing amiss in her digestive system. No blockages, nothing congenital, she looks totally normal for an 11 week old kitten. He doesn't know what could be causing her issues, especially since they seem to be more texture based than substance based - we were grinding up the Hill's for a while and that stayed down until she got to the chunks at the bottom of the bowl - and she's been fine with ham, chicken or turkey baby foods.
I'm at a loss. We have other cats in the house and it's hard to keep the dry food the older cats get away from this increasingly active kitten. I also don't want to have to keep buying Science Diet AD at $62 a case! Has anyone ever heard of a kitten that was weaned too early reacting this way to solid food? One of my coworkers mentioned she had heard something about kittens weaned too early having issues with solid food, but she wasn't big on specifics. Has anyone heard of this and has anyone found a resolution? I am hoping she grows out of this behavior as she gets bigger, but in the meanwhile, it's a total hassle. As I told the little kitten, Trinket, - it's a good thing she's cute...
). So far it has worked, though I might have to get a bigger carrier for her soon! I'm also getting one of those slow feeder bowls, because she eats like it's going out of style - so along with her texture issues, she might simply be eating too fast! 
Again, its a good thing she's cute.
