To Supplement Or Not To Supplement...

[christinesfosters]

Background: This is my first fostering situation. I have a young mom, a little over 1 year, and her 6 kittens who were born on July 29, they'll be 3 weeks on the 19th. Momma was sick, she was on doxycycline for 10 days after the birth because she had a very hard time. She originally had 9 babies, but 2 were stillborn and I lost one about 2 weeks ago.

At first the babies gained great, way over 10 grams daily. But now its becoming less, and one day a few even lost a couple grams. Now, since 8/14, none of them have gained more than 8 grams. The day before yesterday my runt only gained 1 gram. Their current weights are 276, 324, 324, 347, 356, 358 grams. They all seem to nurse fine, but when I squeeze momma's teats I can only get a tiny pin prick of milk, or sometimes none at all. She has kitten hard kibble out all the time which she eats, and gets wet food multiple times daily which she usually eats all of. Recently I've been giving her a little KMR which she LOVES.

I'm a huge worrier, and even more so since I lost a baby. Today I tried to bottle feed a few, but I had problems cutting the nipple and neither of the babies I tried wanted ANYTHING to do with this false nipple. The director of the rescue I'm fostering through says they go through growth spurts and not to worry, but I see everywhere on the internet that anything less than 8 grams of gains is bad. I'd love any advice anyone can give.

 

[Sarthur2]

They appear to be right on target for the most part.

Kittens at 3 weeks should weigh about 12 ounces, and with the exception of the smallest one, they are on target.

It's recommended that kittens gain 6-10 grams daily, and they can have plateaus. They should not lose weight, but sometimes small gains are followed by bigger gains.

Just because you only get a tiny drop out of mom does not mean the kittens are not getting milk.

Kittens should weigh one pound at 4 weeks, or close to it. As long as they are gaining, they should be okay.

If they stop gaining, you may need to supplement using a syringe.

Hopefully, they will continue to gain. They will be ready to try soft food at 5 weeks. You can even try Gerber turkey baby food at that point.

See how they do over the next day or two.

The KMR is good for mom!

 

[StefanZ]

If they dont add, or add less than 10grammes a day, yes do supplement. Kmr or goats milk.

When I began with advising, there was an opinion kittens whom began to get supplemented, tended to abandon the momma. And momma is best. So, it was a fine balance, when to begin to supplement... How long we dare wait with the supplementing...

But with years, it become clear, momma and supplemnting istn no contradiction. If momma has milk, they will always return to momma, and get their share from momma.

So the advice nowadays is, if you see the need for supplementing, do it.

There are only two "but".
1. You must do it carefully and cautiously. Its easy to use a wrong technique, and get milk into lungs...
2. Some brands of kmr are inferior. Uneven quality control, probably. And of course, cow milk is seldom good. But goats milk is fine.