Posted on 09/27/2010 10:54:34 PM PDT by MeekMom
If it’s from feral parents, you will have to take it to the kitty box every few hours yourself so it will learn. My daughter found kittens in her garage when we moved into her new house. If it’s too young to eat kitty food, you can feed it lactose-free milk by eye dropper. I didn’t know cats couldn’t take regular milk until this kitten kept having diarrhea. I gave my first kitten I ever had (who was also abandoned) raw milk and she was fine with it. You can find raw milk at health food stores if you want to try feeding the kitten that.
Yeah, if you see it seeking out the corners of your living room, grab it and take it to the litter box FAST!! lol
Slings=Siblings?
You can feed them goat’s milk, either fresh or canned, with an animal nursing bottle,a medicine dropper or a syringe w/o the needle, of course. Goat’s milk can be used with any orphaned animal. We always use it at the animal shelter that I’m on the board of directors of. If they are around four weeks, they should start eating food soon if they are otherwise healthy. Check if they have any teeth yet. If they don’t have teeth yet, they are less than four weeks. Try canned food with goat’s milk added to it. Wean them gradually off the milk to just canned food.DoNOT use cow’s milk, cats are lactose intolerant,cow’s milk will cause diarrhea,probably kill them.
You HAVE to wipe their bums with a wet cloth so they will go. They cannot physically potty on their own without that...
Also they may want to be bottle fed formula until they are about 6 weeks old.
Another thing.....to properly potty train kittens, you need to confine them in a small cage and the litter box can’t be higher than 2 or 3 inches....and make sure it’s within a couple feet of them at all times. THen as they learn to use the box, you can allow them to be further and further away from the litter box. But, if you don’t want accidents, and if you want them trained properly...confine them to the area with their litter box a foot away from them.
I just went through this several months ago. I foster kitties for a local rescue organization. I had 4 tiny baby kittens turned in to me. I was told they were about 4 weeks old. They were so young that they could barely walk and their eye site wasn’t fully developed. I ended up getting some KMR powder formula and a bottle from the petstore (petsmart) and bottle fed them throughout the day and night. I kept them in a room to themselves and put lots of towels and blankets down and they would do their business on that. Fortunately a few days later I got a mama cat and she eventually took those kittens on as her own and nursed them. They have all been adopted to their new forever homes! It was a lot of work but very rewarding.
I am so sorry you lost the little one you hand raised. Mine were young like that and there is an incredible bond that develops when you are the caretaker 24/7 for that young of kitten. It must have been devastating when he passed, but I know you gave him a wonderful life when he was with you and he would have surely perished if you hadn’t taken him in.
My neighbor and I managed to get all but one female fixed in a large colony before I moved a few months ago. It took us over a year. We were fortunate to find someone willing to help by giving the feral females their meds for 3 days after surgery. I hated catching them—I used to say I was weenie 1 and she was weenie 2 when it came to that. We spent years getting them to trust us and thought they would hate us for trapping them. I knew logically there was no other choice as we were over run with no end in sight, but I still hated that part. I know you were right I shouldn’t have responded to that wierd post, but it was in such poor taste and honestly one of the most offensive posts I’ve seen on FR and I’ve been around quite a while! :)
When I see a post like that, I assume that the poster is a high-functioning Asberger’s or something similar. When I volunteered at Best Friend’s Animal Sanctuary in Kanab, Utah, one of the dogs was barking loudly and incessantly. The instructor said, “Turn your back on him. Don’t reward that kind of behavior w/attention. That’s what he wants. He’ll stop when you ignore him.” It worked! I started practicing that with people, and it works w/them, too! (There are exceptions—Obama comes to mind—but they can’t be helped short of a frontal lobotomy anyway.)
When we lost that beautiful cat, I wound up in bed for 9 days. (No point in getting up.) I’m a wimp.
Bless you for doing that for the ferals—you’re a very special person! :)
P.S. I’d never try to tell you to do or not to do something. Sometimes ya gotta exorcise the demon.
“When I see a post like that, I assume that the poster is a high-functioning Asberger’s or something similar.”
Oh my gosh, you gave me a full body laugh with that statement!!
I consider not getting up for nine days after losing a kitty you hand raised to be extremely normal. If you ever see my mom on FR—MEG33—ask her what an animal lover I am. She generously took in 3 of the kitties for me, but she’s at her limit. I’m down to seven—5 I hand raised and 2 with such physical handicaps they wouldn’t have made it outside.
I don’t care if they are canine or feline, I just consider them perfect examples of God’s unconditional love. Next time I see someone say something that kooky on FR I will think of what you said and just laugh!! I can almost always do that with political stuff, but there was something downright creepy about that post.
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