Help with kittens!

[GorgeousLadyofWrestling]

We have just got two 11 week old kittens. They’ve been raised on fresh chicken, which I can’t keep giving them. I’ve bought them Iams wet food and Purina dry food (for kittens). One will eat anything but the other will barely eat and I keep giving her the remains of the roast chicken we had but it’s nearly run out.

What do I do?? It’s been about 12 years since I last had a kitten and she just ate whatever I gave her.

Should add the one that won’t eat much, she’s not crying for food or anything and she’ll sniff the other offerings but she’s just not interested. But will wolf down fresh chicken. She’s so tiny and little, much smaller than her sister - worried that’s she’s not eating.

Congrats on your new kittens 😊

My cat was weaned onto fresh chicken as a kitten and it was hard but I had to buy individual sachets of a few types of kitten food to try with him. It's important that it is kitten food as they won't have got all the nutrients they need from chicken as yummy as it is for them (advice from vet at the time) Mine would only eat whiskas kitten dry food. I then transitioned him on to something I preferred him to eat.

My now 15 year old boy is sat staring at me so they will be fine once they figure out what they like.

Also, if you haven't tried it already, it might be worth mixing the chicken you have left in with some of the cat food and see if that helps encourage her.

Thank you 😻

I’ll keep trying her with different kitten food. Should I just hold out and wait for her to eat, and no longer give fresh chicken?

Come over to the litter tray you will get loads of advice in exchange for kitten pictures xx

😂😂

Have you tried Thrive kitten food? It might resemble the chicken she’s used to more than regular cat food, as it is actual pieces of chicken.

Maybe try something like Turkey mince if it's a cost issue and that's much cheaper.

Although I don't think just meat as food is enough for cats as it doesn't contain all the nutrients they require.

Do you have scales that you can weigh her on? I foster rescue kittens so often see eating issues due to illness or pickiness and find one way if checking if they're eating enough is to weigh them 2 or 3 times a week to see if they're growing well. I use the ones linked below from ikea and get them to sit in a small box on the scale to be weighed. At that age they should gain 10-15 g per day on average and any problems with health or eating will show in a weight stall or loss.

www.ikea.com/gb/en/p/ordning-scales-stainless-steel-90100057/

But are you sure she's not eating when you're not looking? One of the ones I have now never seemed to eat and would only eat dry food but she was gaining weight so I was not particularly worried, but one morning I saw her eating the food that was leftover from what I had given her at bedtime.

Purina is very poor quality.

I would try to continue with fresh chicken for now (or turkey mince if she'll eat that) but gradually add more and more kitten food and less and less chicken/turkey, over the course of a week or two. Fresh chicken on its own doesn't have the right nutrients for cats or kittens - they need the organ meats too, to get amino acids, and a source of calcium.

We had kittens that refused to eat proper food for a couple weeks after we got them. We tried everything!! We ended up weaning them on Lick-e-Lix (yoghurty sort of thing), starting with the cream flavour as it’s like a thick milk and then moving on to the meat + fish flavours. We gradually added the lick-e-lix on top of kitten food, mainly very smooth pâtés and it slowly but surely worked.

As long as they’re drinking plenty of milk our vet said not to worry. They’ll eat when they’re ready!

Rest assured the kittens that wouldn’t eat are now 3 years old, big and healthy with massive appetites

They need kitten food for the nutrients and the fat content apparently. Could you maybe mix some meat up with the kitten food to try and fox the cutie?