Quick: kitten advice needed.

[twoforjoy]

One of my son's friends has some stray cats that he sort of adopted, and they had a litter of kittens. We were going to take two when they got old enough (around 8 weeks), but they're five weeks now, and all but one died over the last few days. Apparently the momma cat stopped feeding them. :(

 

He's brought us over the last survivor. I've had older cats, but never one this little. Help! What are we supposed to do? Can we take care of one this young? If not, where should we bring it where they can?

[Ellie]

Five weeks? Easy peasy. :-)

 

Put out dry kitten chow where little dk (dear kitty) can get it, and water. She doesn't need milk (as in cow's milk). Have a tiny little litter box where she can easily get in.

 

She might need lots of cuddling 'cuz she's such a little baby, I suspect that won't be a problem, 'cuz she's a cutie, I'm sure. :-)

[Denise in Florida]

We adopted a teeny tiny kitty once. The vet sold us some cat infant vitamins. I put one vitamin in her kibble dish each day and she ate it with the kibble. She did fine.

 

Keep an eye on her litter box, she may develop constipation but you can google easy cures for that.

 

snuggle, snuggle, snuggle they need comfort and warmth to thrive.

[laundrycrisis]

The cat I had growing up was the runt and came home with us at 6 weeks because the mama stopped feeding her. She ate a little kibble but a lot of rice cereal mixed up with evaporated milk for extra calories until she got bigger and stronger. These were the days before vets had kitty formula to sell. Baby rice cereal and whole or evaporated milk were what we had to work with.

[Elizabeth in WA]

We have been feeding our tiny kitten (we guess she was 4-5 weeks old when we got her) babycat food from our local pet store. It is very soft, vitamin enriched wet food. She is almost old enough now to start getting shots and deworming. Our vet said 7 weeks for that. Just in the last few days she has become more playful and stays awake more often than napping. She still needs to eat pretty frequently and will still nuzzle into our necks to try to nurse when she is hungry.

[kitten18]

I would watch her carefully. For most of a litter to die, I would suspect distemper.

 

Also know that it's VERY common for kittens to get roundworms. Easy to fix with a de-wormer from the vet but they can dehydrate very quickly so get her in right away if she has diarrhea.