7 Week Old Orphaned Kitten Won't Eat On His Own

[moonliteden]

Hello!

3 weeks ago I took in an orphaned kitten. Due to his weight and exam, the vet believed him to be 4 weeks at that time. For the first week I fed him straight KMR and then started mixing in Royal Canin Baby Cat mousse into the mix. At this point the food mix is 95% soft food and 5% milk, which is great. While he likes it, and eats fine from a syringe, he will NOT eat it from a bowl. I have tried different soft foods as well, and nothing. For the last few days I made it a point to skip his middle of the night syringe feeding and offer him a bowl with the exact same food...and nothing. I even left it in there for hours and he has 0 interest.

I don't have any other cats here who are willing to show him what to do (I have an older female cat who wants nothing to do with him), so I am not sure what my next steps are.

Help!

 

[war&wisdom]

Do you place him right in front of the bowl, or do you wait to see if he wanders over on his own?

Maybe a good intermediate step would be getting him to lick it off your fingers.

Also, it's possible he's a bit younger than the estimate, just on the heavier side.

 

[Kflowers]

Sometimes it helps to use a flat plate. If you think about it, from the cat's view eating out of a bowl is difficult. For one thing you've got to hold your head up to the entire extent of your neck then reach over and down, then scoop the food up. That's hard. Bowls also brush whiskers which bothers some cats.

Now, a plate means you can put the milk and wet food mush right there in the open where he can see it. He can walk right into the plate and smush his face into the food and scoop it into his mouth. He can smush his face all around the plate. Yep, he'll get it all over his face and you'll have to wash him, but you're doing that now.

Think about how human babies learn to eat. Same thing only not hands.

 

[Sarthur2]

Or just keep syringe feeding for a bit longer. He will learn to eat on his own any day now. It’s important not to skip meals right now.

Thanks for caring for him!

 

[di and bob]

He may just not be ready..... I got kittens to eat by taking a small amount on your finger and smushing it on their lips. They automatically lick it off, do that a few times and he learns he has to lick to get food, not suck or be passive. He is behind in development, you already know that, so he most likely is behind on learning to eat too, hre will in time!

 

[tarasgirl06]

Welcome moonliteden and sweet little boy to TCS! Other posters have some excellent suggestions, which I can't really add to, except to welcome you and ask you to keep us updated, please!

 

[maggie101]

My guess it's the bowl. A flat or oval shaped. Any noise around him? Are you able to check his gums? Petco has dried fish toppers

 

[GabreilleM]

Feeding my little ones on a flat plate and using my finger to scoop some up and show them the way to the rest helped me the most. I just scooped a bit up and let them sniff it (they associate your hand with feeding if you bottle feed) and slowly have them follow it to the plate. After that I just let the kittens eat a bit off my finger and put it into the food a bit and I was able to take my finger away and have the kitten keep eating. Hopefully, that's helpful!

 

[mazie]

How is your little guy doing? Has his eating improved, what did you name him and can you post a picture of him, and of course, Welcome to TCS!