Normally, mother cats wean their little ones from one month and a half of age. But for various reasons a kitten can end up orphaned or abandoned on the street, so then it will be a human who has to take care of it, because he alone could not survive.
But of course, how can we know that the day has come when we have to start including other foods in the hairy diet? Sometimes it is not easy, so we are going to explain when and how to wean cats.
When to wean a cat
Knowing that a cat is ready to eat other types of food and not just milk is very easy: he will tell us himself. Obviously, they do not know how to speak like us, but there are a few signs or signals that will indicate that the furry does not want so much bottle, and they are:
- Start to bite hard everything he finds: the bottle, your fingers, etc.
- You can already see the tips of their teeth.
- Meows as if asking for more food after drinking his bottle, which is likely to last you less and less.
- If you have another cat that already eats I think, kitty may want to try it.
All of this will happen more or less from 4 weeks old, but there are some who at 3 weeks or 3 and a half weeks already want to stop drinking milk.
How to wean a cat
The weaning process should be gradual. We cannot substitute milk from one day to the next for the feed or food that we want to give it. You have to think that his teeth are developing now, and Until he is 2 or 2 and a half months old, he will not be able to chew the dry feed.
So, what we will do is give him wet feed for kittens for at least 2 weeks, after which we can give him a taste of the dry feed soaked with milk. With two months completed, You can stop giving milk and replace it with water.
With these tips and lots of pampering, your kitten will grow up healthy and strong 🙂.
I just made a video for one of my cats. I was amused at how 5 kittens (from 2 other mothers who gave birth around her time) "rolled" her to suckle, since she still has milk. They have junior feed always at their disposal, plus the cold cuts / cans that I give them 3 times a day, but they also like their dose of milk.
As the kittens are already 3 months old, they are half as big as she is, and of course, the 5 above because the mother was barely seen haha.
Virtually all of my kittens have started to eat feed (tiny baby size, like half a pea) by one month of age. The first litters suckled, they drank a bottle of milk for kittens (normal milk cannot be drunk by any cat, since it causes diarrhea, I repeat it because people do not know it, it is a myth, I only see a use; cow only once, in case of having picked up the cat from the street, because since it produces diarrhea, you can easily see if it has worms or not ...), I continue, they suckled, they took a bottle, cans and baby food, all at the same time. once during the day as they wanted or I was giving them (always try to put a sufficient amount so that they leave a little food in the container and thus know if they have been hungry or not, because if they are left with hungry, after a while they will start to eat what they find, threads, paper, clothes, rubber bands, plastics, toy pens, etc. choking !!!)
The next 3 litters, which came at the same time almost in the same week, did not want a bottle, but after a month they also suckled, and ate cans (I mean canned baby cat food), ham and / or turkey / chicken cold cuts grated (from BonArea for example, which are more affordable than buying cans), and I think for babies, all throughout the day.
By the way, it is not advisable to remove all the babies at once from the mother, first because it will be distressing for her and then she must be removed from breastfeeding little by little or impressive lumps will form in her breasts.
For whatever reason, this cat had one of the breasts "obstructed", or rather the kittens took to suck on other nipples (because if we squeezed the nipple a little, milk would come out), then it began to form. like a lump in the breast. I worried because he was getting bigger and bigger. I tried to get the kittens to suck on that nipple, and luckily it worked and after a while it has become perfectly normal without doing anything special.
How do you notice that you have experience in pregnant cats and kittens hehe 🙂
Your comments are always very helpful.
By the way, I am glad that in the end the problem of the cat could be solved in the most natural way possible.
Right now I am taking care of an orphan kitten, who has just turned 5 weeks. From the third week to the fourth, giving her the bottle was quite a show, especially in the morning: she woke up, put her on my lap, put the bottle in front of her, and desperately searched for the nipple while scratching my hands and the bottle. The poor. He ate the 20ml bottles in a few minutes.
With 4 weeks we already said to give him canned food. At first it was difficult, but I put tiny pieces of food in her, forcing her to swallow it a bit, and by the end in two days she has learned to eat by herself. It was incredible.
Of course, in two days her character changed: she went from being a calm kitten, to being a very unruly kitten. It is tremendous. Very loving, but tremendous. He starts to want to climb up the legs, through the curtains, well, those little things hehehe 🙂
Oh well. Little by little you will learn to behave. He is of mischief age.
A greeting.
They are wonderful, I love them madly, each one has its own personality, there are them with a very sweet look, another wild Siberian wolf, another with huge ears that is also white and looks like a rabbit haha when he shakes them he touches one another making a sound of flap, flap, flap, another that we revived for a long time because she was not breathing at birth, I remember that she began to react by rubbing her ears, and after trying everything of course, she has become a little crossed but she is very happy and playful, another with eyes so white it looks like a ghost, etc.
And they are all so good, loving, clean and friendly, wonderful.
When they are little they are more moved, two of the previous litter did take to climb up my legs and back and get like an owl on my shoulders to look closely at everything I did. At first they had tiny fingernails and the scratches were tiny, but when they got a little older they would come running at full speed and climb up to my ears in a couple of boats. Then they weighed more and sometime they stayed hanging from my butt and I already told them not to go up more, hehe
The latter do not climb, they stay in the shoes sharpening their nails, at most they nibble at my ankles, but they do have a good run playing on the sofas one behind the other.
The first litter, which has now been a year old, continues to climb, on tables, chairs, sofas, shelves, TV ... one "accidentally" threw a medium flat TV on the floor ... and of course, it broke .... They also love to chew on headphone cables, and have already charged quite a few.
You have to watch them, with the windows, balconies, plastics, fires ... the other day another little one I saw that he was going to jump onto the plate where I make the crepes and I caught him just before he put his feet in it, if he had not fried them .
By the way, how we have adapted the balcony / terrace so that they can play there at ease, closing everything with a net. We have bought them something very practical and useful; a bench-trunk, it is made of resistant plastic and we have made a round opening / door in front, just enough for a fat cat to pass, and now during the day they lie down or run over it and at night they get inside this bench -trunk http://www.leroymerlin.es/fp/14694960/arcon-de-resina-de-265-l-garden-bench?idCatPadre=6762&pathFamilaFicha=010303
It is great to sit and as a home for them. It shelters them, they love it because it is like a cave, and easy to clean, you just have to open the trunk lid to change the blankets comfortably.
Congratulations on the kitten! You can also try giving them a small striped ham / turkey sausage, they love it and it spreads a lot.
Hahaha, what mischief they do.
I'm glad nothing happened to the little one in the end! 🙂 They give us every scare ...
That broken television has reminded me that one of my cats, who is now seven years old, also spoiled one when she was a puppy. The surprise was not pleasant at all, but apart from having a broken television, she was unharmed, so nothing bad happened.
Thanks for the advice. Today I went to buy dry feed for kittens, the cans were starting to get expensive and hehe Now I wait for him to get used to drinking water soon.
I have 3 cats. A 6-year-old, a 2-year-old and a 3-month-old. The little girl does nothing more than suck the adult's nipples all the time, they are sterilized and don't produce any milk. How can I prevent the little girl from doing it? , in addition they have already hurt
Hi Orlando.
Try mixing his usual food with cat milk (you will find it in pet stores and, surely, also in supermarkets). This will probably stop bothering them.
A greeting.
Hello, my cat had kittens 35 days ago, yesterday I put her concentrate wet with warm water, only one of the babies tasted it, the oytos did not even look at her, today I put them back, and nothing, they do not want to eat, is it normal? How much longer should I wait for them to eat?
Thank you
Hello Ana Maria.
Yes it's normal. Give the mother too, so her kittens will see that she eats and, therefore, will imitate her.
In the event that a week passes and they have not eaten a bit of solid food yet, take some with your fingers (very, very little) and carefully put it in your mouth. By instinct it will swallow.
A greeting.
I met a three-week-old kitten last week, I started weaning yesterday (it is already about 4 weeks old), it has had 4 shots of milk and one of pate with milk but it has made very soft poop. Is it better to go directly to the soaked feed? Or is the pate better to give it dry? Thanks
Hello Auxi.
It is normal for you to have loose stools; think you've been eating food like that, squishy 🙂.
The pate can be given alone without problems, but do not hesitate to soak it with the milk that he was drinking if he does not eat it.
Greetings.