new kitten, won't eat..advice please??

dibi

myself and my boyfriend bought a kitten (eddie) off some guy on gumtree on saturday..the guy we bought it off said the kitten was 7 weeks old and said he was feeding him sheba and gave us a tin of it (it was sheba for adult cats!!) he also gave us a carton of cat milk (and that was for senior cats!!) so he was obviously useless at taking care of a kitten..

anyway we got home and put some water in a bowl and some of the sheba in another bowl with some warm water and mashed it up, seeing as the guy said eddie loved it..anyways he hasn't eaten ANY wet food and we've been giving him whiskas specially formulated cat milk..that's the only thing he'll eat..he won't drink any water either

i am going to bring him to the vet as soon as possible which will probably be thursday but what can i do till then to help him eat something?? i've tried rubbing a bit around his mouth and putting some on my finger into his mouth but its still not working??

desperately worried!! i know he's only 7 week..and he's just been planted in a new home but how and when will he start eating?!

Shenshen

It could well just be the new surroundings... we've adopted a cat last year, he was a few months old at the time already.
He wouldn't touch any food as long as either of us were in the room, not even treats we had been assured he loved. For the first 4 weeks or so, he would only eat at night.

Have you left food with the kitten overnight?
I would definitely recommend seeing a vet in any case, though.

muireann50

You could trying heating up the food a little, so it gets a bit smellier, which sometimes helps. Or try some sardines (not the ones in tomato). He is very young to be on his own though so I would keep a close eye on him, especially if he stops drinking, because kittens that young can get sick very fast. Def a vet visit to check him out also

planetX

maybe he wasn't fully weaned yet. My lot of kittens started off on Royal Canin kitten - it comes in teeny tiny pieces, they loved it and put on good condition. Whiskas kitten pouches were popular too. I'd go easy on the catmilk, too much of it can still cause upset stomach. And I've never heard of a cat eating wet food mixed with water - yuck!
Hopefully it's just the move - I know catteries sometimes have trouble getting their guests to start eating. With a kitten that young it could get serious quickly, so vet asap.

also a kitten that age has a really small stomach - you could try holding off on the milk, he might just be too full after it.

MaryK666

I'm sure you must be worried out of your mind. I don't mean to lecture you but I don't understand why you bought a kitten from somewhere as unreliable as donedeal when there are shelters and rescue groups just full to the brim with unwanted kittens who would have been able to set you up with a kitten who's age was definite and who had been weaned, litter trained, wormed and vaccinated.

Still, the deed is done now and the important thing in all of this is the poor little kitten.

There's a good chance that it is younger than you were told it is so there's the possibility that it hasn't been weaned properly yet. There's a very serious danger with young kittens of dehydration and it can happen very, very, quickly and the kitten can die. I'd advise you to get your kitty to a vet asap and the vet can better advise you of it's age and sex. It can also be wormed and, if old enough, vaccinated and if necessary, given IV fluids. The vet can also provide you with some kitten milk formula if it turns out that the kitten is too young for solid food. They can also advise you on how best to wean the kitten and how to feed it until it's digestive system matures enough for solid food.

The poor little kitty is going to need lots of love and care and comfort and companionship for a while as kittens can be very needy if they're very young and an only pet. Hopefully though, your vet will be able to help you out and you'll have a very long and happy life together. Please let us know how you get on.

Zapperzy

planetX wrote: »

And I've never heard of a cat eating wet food mixed with water

Mine does, I mix in a good dollop of water with her wet food, salmon oil and plaque off and mix it all up til it nearly looks like soup. She seems to prefer a more liquidy consistency. Also no harm to increase her water intake as she's prone to urinary problems.

OP there's a chance this kitten is younger than the seller said and as someone else suggested not properly weaned yet. If you post a decent photo someone should be able to say if he's much younger than 7 weeks. Also it's not unusual for kittens to go off their food when they are rehomed but it is something you need to keep an eye on as they go downhill very quickly. If he's not drinking you can use a dropper or syringe to handfeed water to at least keep him hydrated, just be careful to take it easy not to drown him.

Good luck with him and if you are worried ring the vet, every area has an out of hours service so that's what they are there for.

Edited to add: If you pinch up some skin at the back of the neck it should spring back down, if it stays up or is slow to return to normal then he's dehydrated and that is an emergency you need a vet for.

The Sweeper

Can you please weigh the kitten? A guide to age is around 100g per week, so if he weighs say 650g - 750g he's probably seven weeks old. If he weighs less than that, say 300-400g, he's not been weaned and was separated from his mother too early. You'll have to get kitten formula from the vet and feed him with a tiny bottle or syringe every few hours depending what age he is.

If you can't get liquid into the kitten he will dehydrate and die. Weigh him - also, what colour are his eyes? Kittens have blue eyes up to about four weeks, they transition into a murky colour between four and five weeks and from five weeks onwards they're more the green or gold adult colour they should be.

Care of a kitten around three to four weeks is quite different to care of a kitten around eight weeks and a lot more can go wrong. You'll need to identify the kitten's age before we can give you more guidance.

Kittens do not go off their food at that age unless something is wrong. Even a day without food in the first few weeks can be the difference between thriving and dehydration and weakness that can quickly accelerate downhill and end up in the kitten's death.

/edited to say I re-read and saw he's lapping the whiskas kitten milk - that'll buy you some time but it isn't a complete food.

There's a LOT you need to know if this kitten is underage (which is what I'm suspicious of). If the kitten is wee, around the size of your hand, blue or murky eyes and weighs little, it's a lot younger than you think. You may have to wean it, and wash it so it poos and pees properly. By 'wash it', I mean you get a facecloth or flannel, rinse the cloth in warm water and wring it out so it's barely damp, but warm. Put two fingers into the cloth, and with your two fingers, wash the kitten. Start with his face and head, wiping in short, gentle strokes like his mum would. Move down the body making gentle wiping motions or circular massage motions. Finish by wiping the bottom (and use a fresh flannel each time!) You want to do this cleaning after every feed - it'll help you bond, the kitten should love it - make sure you don't make the kitten too wet from the cloth or he'll get cold when you stop washing. You can do this with a piece of kitchen towel too, but the roughness of the flannel seems to work better. I've cut a facecloth into eight pieces for instance to make washing the cloths easier - you don't want to start washing the kitten's face with a piece that was last used to wipe his bum. After washing, you can place him on a towel wrapped around a hot water bottle (make sure the hot water bottle isn't too hot - don't use boiling water - and always make space for the kitten to get off the bottle - so for instance you use a towel, fold it in half or quarters, and slip the bottle into one half of the folds so half the towel is warm and the other half is cool - kittens can't regulate their body temperatures at that size, so he needs to be able to access warmth if he needs it and get away from it if he gets too hot).

For trying to get him to eat solid food, sit on the floor and sit the kitten on your lap, get some mushy catfood on one finger, and holding the kitten gently by the scruff of the neck (a hold that you can achieve with one finger and thumb at that age) and with his bottom supported on your lap (front feet can be off your knee but back feet and bum should be on it), you can gently work the mushy cat food into the kitten's mouth by going in one side. There's a trick where you can open the mouth by pressing back at the jaw hinge with one finger and then getting a bit of food in there with the other finger - it's delicate and fiddly but the idea is to get a little bit of food in the kitten's mouth. As soon as you have a bit of food in there - even a smear - let go of his scruff. He'll start to lick and chew and lick his lips. You can let him do that and keep him on your knee by stroking him gently. Next fingerful, try offering the food on the tip of your finger and see if he'll lick it off - sometimes they just need to get the taste and they'll have a go themselves.

I'd also try very fresh raw beef mince - but it needs to be extremely fresh and you need to have very clean hands. Small kittens can sometimes go for the raw meat quicker than they'd go for pet food, and you can feed the mince by the 'string' as it were - offering a small stringy piece. Better yet if you buy some cheap, fresh stewing beef and cut it into miniscule slivers - and I really mean miniscule, strips little bigger than the insert of a biro. Only cut off the pieces you need as you go and refrigerate the meat between feeds.

Kittens have tiny stomachs and need to eat little and often. You practically can't overfeed a young animal (in this context I mean by offering them food, not by force-feeding - offer them as much as they want to eat, take away the uneaten, come back two to three hours later and offer them as much as they'll eat again.)

If the kitten has a rounded, firm belly that seems to be disproportionate to his size, he'll have a worm load. If he has a bad parasitic load it's a bit much to worm, flea-treat and vaccinate all at once, and all of that treatment is best done under veterinary care.

Even if not weaned, your kitten should be either playful or asleep. They tend to go from playing and curious and wide-eyed to flat out and asleep. An in-between state - sitting hunched up with eyes half closed and fur fluffed up - that can be a sign of a problem. Cats with a high temperature feel like we do when we have a flu - achy, shivery and miserable. They hunch themselves up, pull their head in and can tuck their feet under, are reluctant to move, move their heads slowly and keep their eyes slitted against the light. They can growl or even bite if moved or lifted in this state (because it's painful). Any cat or kitten who looks like that needs to see the vet immediately. Lethargy - any sort of disinterested flatness - is not a natural state for a kitten and can be a sign of feeling poorly. There's a difference between lethargy and just sleeping or being tired out after play - lethargy is persistent.

Whiskas milk isn't a complete food but it'll keep your kitten hydrated for now. Keep an eye on bowel movements - the lactose has been removed from specialist cat milk because most cats are lactose intolerant and will get the runs if given cow's milk. Diarrhoea will dehydrate the kitten quite quickly. Hopefully the whiskas milk will just keep him ticking over until you can get to the vet. If he's very young and you need to wean him, you can get a bit of kitten formula milk to tide you over while you switch from liquids to solids - formula will be better than the whiskas milk and is a proper complete food for kittens.

angelfire9

I was going to add my tuppence worth but Sweeper has it covered

Just to add though when we got our ball of fur he was 9 weeks old (i know this because I'd seen him at a few hours old and literally counted the weeks til we could have him) he was a rescue and the scrawniest thing you ever saw
You'd think he was about 4 weeks but for the fact that he had the deepest green eyes you'd ever see

For the first 2 days he wouldn't interact with anyone but hid behind the pipes in the utility room, he never ate when there was someone within 10 feet of him (he liked his privacy) but he used the litter tray from day one and the food I left out for him overnight was always gone by morning
Our fella still hates water when i leave it out
Bottled water or tap he won't touch it
Whiskas milk he'd drink all day :rolleyes:
Ironically he'll drink rainwater in the garden

if you can weigh him to give us an idea of what size he is, or take a photo with him beside a mug or a ruler so we have some perspective as to his size
And check his eye colour that will tell his age more than anything

Good luck with eddie
And keep us posted!