Need Help With 5 Week Old Kittens

[Lexi392]

Hi! New here..and new to raising kittens as well. My baby Luna had her first litter of 6 kittens. They will be 5 weeks on Saturday, June 8th.
Mom seems like she is over nursing. She let's them nurse for about 5 minutes, not even..and then gets up and leaves them..some of them literally will have just started eating. Only 1 of the 6 will eat wet food, and he just started trying out the hard food today..but he doesnt eat much of it. I have tried giving them just KMR, I tried KMR mixed in their wet food, I tried blending hard food with KMR, tried just wet food, tried wet and hard food mixed, and tried just hard food..they will sometimes lick it off of my fingers but usually just smell it and run away. They refused to use a bottle, I tried that a few times..so my question is should i be worried? Is there anything else I can try to help them wean? Mom IS still letting them nurse, so I know they are eating at least a little bit. But I'm not sure if shes letting them eat enough so I'm worried. Also, if I leave her in the room with them when I try to get them to eat, they will go up to the food and smell around and look curious about it, but she runs over and moves them out of the way at eats the entire bowl..even when I make her the same exact thing and give it to her at the same time..she wont eat hers and will run to their bowl..is it normal for mom to eat their food?
Thank you in advance !!

 

[lutece]

Everything sounds normal to me. Kittens normally wean by simply learning to eat mom's food, and then eating more and more food over time. It's normal for some kittens to start eating earlier than others. You don't normally have to do anything special to get them to eat, as long as the food available is something they are physically capable of eating.

Mother cats at this stage are producing a lot of milk and need tons of calories, so she is probably hungry and will eat any food available, including the food that you want the kittens to eat. If she is eating all the food, put down more food so that there is enough for everyone.

5-week old kittens can nurse very efficiently and get a lot of milk out of mom in just a few minutes, so I wouldn't worry about her getting up in the middle of nursing. That is one way mother cats encourage their kittens to start eating solid food. If you are worried that the kittens are not getting enough to eat, you can weigh them to see if they are normal weight. But if they appear to be normal fat babies that sleep contentedly (as it appears in the picture), they should be fine.

 

[Sarthur2]

lutece just gave great advice! Also, check mom’s nipples to see if they look red or cracked. If she is sore she will not let the kittens nurse much, so apply coconut oil liberally to mom’s nipples and mammary areas daily to keep them from drying out.

 

[Lexi392]

Okay awesome! Thank you so much. Moms nipples seem fine as well. Thanks for the help! I don't know how I'm going to handle when their old enough to go to new homes, I want to keep them all, lol.