- Joined
- Aug 30, 2005
- Messages
- 56
- Purraise
- 13
I'm going nuts. We have two bottle babies - their mother was hit by a car and my hubby's ex-wife is a dip and couldn't figure out how to feed them. They were about 12 days old when we got them, and we've had them for 18 days now, so they are at LEAST 4 weeks old. Been bottle feeding them every 6 hours or so. They've tripled in size since we got them. Completely litter trained. Can climb over 2 foot barricades. Been chewing on the nipple for a week straight now.
THEY WILL NOT EAT FROM A DISH!!!! I know they're young, but I have never had a young kitten that wasn't eating at least partially on their own at 3 weeks (and believe me, I've had plenty). The kittens are eating us out of house and home. They weigh 1 pound. They are eating around 30 Tablespoons of food a day - that's 1.5 bottles, 5 times a day. I've actually had the little male drink 2 full bottles in one sitting! Formula costs a fortune and we're already on our third canister. We have family members giving us donations to help!
I've tried everything I can think of to entice them to a dish of formula so we could at least start the motion to hard food, but it hasn't worked. They walk through it and make a bee-line to me. I've tried canned food - she sat in it and screamed at me to feed her. I've tried spiking the bottle with the gravy from canned food - still no interest in canned food. They just cannot seem to grasp the concept that instead of a bottle, the formula is in a help-yourself format. Nope, it's just look at the human and scream your little fuzzy head off until you get that bottle. If that doesn't work, scale the barriers and jump on them. My hubby has plenty of his own experience with bottlers as well, and he's at his wits end, too!
And don't get me started about the addiction to one particular nipple. Especially when one of the other cats got a hold of it and tore it to pieces. It took THREE TIMES AS LONG to get them to eat with the new one, which was the second one I tried...... and even then they were fussing for hours....
I need help....
THEY WILL NOT EAT FROM A DISH!!!! I know they're young, but I have never had a young kitten that wasn't eating at least partially on their own at 3 weeks (and believe me, I've had plenty). The kittens are eating us out of house and home. They weigh 1 pound. They are eating around 30 Tablespoons of food a day - that's 1.5 bottles, 5 times a day. I've actually had the little male drink 2 full bottles in one sitting! Formula costs a fortune and we're already on our third canister. We have family members giving us donations to help!
I've tried everything I can think of to entice them to a dish of formula so we could at least start the motion to hard food, but it hasn't worked. They walk through it and make a bee-line to me. I've tried canned food - she sat in it and screamed at me to feed her. I've tried spiking the bottle with the gravy from canned food - still no interest in canned food. They just cannot seem to grasp the concept that instead of a bottle, the formula is in a help-yourself format. Nope, it's just look at the human and scream your little fuzzy head off until you get that bottle. If that doesn't work, scale the barriers and jump on them. My hubby has plenty of his own experience with bottlers as well, and he's at his wits end, too!
And don't get me started about the addiction to one particular nipple. Especially when one of the other cats got a hold of it and tore it to pieces. It took THREE TIMES AS LONG to get them to eat with the new one, which was the second one I tried...... and even then they were fussing for hours....
I need help....