what to feed kittens 2 weeks old

by Alford Hansen Published 2 years ago Updated 2 years ago

Cat Feeding Chart

Age	Approximate Weight	Amount to Feed	Schedule
0-1 week	50-150 grams / 1.7 – 5.2 ounces	2-6 ml kitten formula	Every 1 to 2 hours
1-2 weeks	150-250 grams / 5.2 – 8.8 ounces	6-10 ml kitten formula	Every 1 to 2 hours
2-3 weeks	250-350- grams / 8.8 – 12.4 ounces	10-14 ml kitten formula	Every 2 to 3 hours
3-4 weeks	350-450 grams / 12.4 – 15.9 ounces	14-18 ml kitten formula	Every 3 to 4 hours

19 more rows ...

Jul 13 2022

Stick to kitten formula, such as kitten milk replacer (KMR), which can be purchased at most pet supply stores. Use specific kitten bottles to feed them kitten formula. Feed kittens on their stomachs—not their backs like human babies—and tilt the bottle.

Full Answer

How to properly care for 2 week old kitten?

Schedule an appointment early. No matter what, schedule your kitten’s first vet appointment within a week of getting her. ...
Ask about intestinal parasites, fleas and heartworm. ...
Ask which vaccinations your kitten needs and how often: Preventive care for kittens may include vaccines for feline leukemia, rabies and distemper. ...

How long should kittens eat kitten food?

How to switch a kitten from kitten food to cat food?

For Day 1 and 2, the diet proportion of your kitten food should be ¼ adult food and ¾ kitten food.
On Day 3 and 4, the proportion is ½ adult cat food and ½ kitten food.
For Day 5 and 6, your kitten’s meal should be ¾ adult cat food and ¼ kitten food.
By Day 7, your kitten would be fully transitioned to adult cat food.

What to feed kittens that have been abandoned?

If the kittens aren’t in imminent danger, wait and observe them from a distance for an hour or two. ...
You can try scattering flour around the kittens and leaving the area completely for a while. ...
Clean kittens that are sleeping soundly are probably not abandoned. ...

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How to take care of abandoned kittens?

To successfully raise an orphaned litter one must consider:

Nutrition and weaning
Sanitation
Temperature and humidity
Disease prevention
Nurture and socialization

How often should you feed a 2 week old kitten?

every 2-4 hoursHow much and how often should I feed orphaned kittens? Orphaned kittens should be fed on a strict schedule, preferably every 2-4 hours. Kittens up to two weeks old can generally consume their daily intake in 4-5 meals per day.

Can you give a 2 week old kitten water?

Very young kittens will get most of their fluid from their mother's milk and won't need anything else. Weaned kittens will need fresh water to drink.

How do you take care of a 2 week old kitten without its mother?

For the first week of life, they need to be fed about every two to three hours. After that, you can usually stretch it out to every four hours. These kittens should be bottle-fed using kitten milk replacer (or KMR), which comes in either liquid or powder form.

Can 2 week old kittens survive without mother?

Unfortunately, orphaned kittens less than 4 weeks old cannot live without their mother, and must be bottle fed around the clock in order to survive. Thankfully, most discoveries of newborn kittens do not call for human assistance, and in fact, leaving Mom and her family alone is generally the best thing you can do.

What do you feed a baby kitten if you don't have formula?

Homemade milk replacer for kittens1 • 6 tablespoons (90 ml) condensed milk • 6 tablespoons (90 ml) water • 1/2 cup (120 ml) plain yogurt (not low fat) • 3 large or 4 small egg yolks Blend uniformly and warm to 95-100°F. + Refrigerate between uses.

How do I take care of a 2 week old kitten?

2-week-old kitten careBegin a deworming regimen. Talk with your vet about deworming your kittens and get a deworming schedule from them.Eyes open. Your kittens' eyes should probably be open by now. ... Turn down the heat. You can lower the air temperature of the nest box to about 80°F.

What milk is good for kittens?

The short answer: The only milk that is healthy for kittens to drink is either their mother's, or they will need a kitten milk replacer, which can also be called KMR or kitten milk formula.

What to feed a kitten that lost its mother?

For the first 3 weeks of life, orphaned kittens are usually bottle fed with kitten formula milk replacer every 2 to 4 hours. When kittens are 3 to 4 weeks of age, feed them a kitten milk replacer mixed with small amounts of moist, easily chewable, commercial kitten food four to six times each day.

How do you make sugar water for kittens?

Following are the steps of making sugar water for kittens:Boil a pot of water for 5 minutes.Add two teaspoons of white sugar per liter of boiling water.Stir the sugar into the hot liquid until dissolved.Cools down the sugar solution.Filter the sugar solution, before giving it to your kitten.

Can kittens drink water?

Your kitten is no different but she still needs to drink water and plenty of it! Kittens may get the water they need form wet food such as Whiskas® wet pouches, but they still need fresh drinking water. Water aids their body processes and helps them avoid potential problems with their kidneys.

Can you touch 2 week old kittens?

Take it slowly, and make sure she is okay with it before you touch them. Either way, they really should not be handled that much at all until they are about 2 weeks old. If you do handle them, be sure to either wear gloves or wash your hands thoroughly before and after.

Is evaporated milk good for kittens?

Can cats drink evaporated milk? So, using evaporated milk for kittens really isn't recommended. If it's the middle of the night and you have nothing else and cannot get anything until morning, it will work in a pinch. But, it is definitely not something you should use long term.

What is the best cat food for kittens?

Wet and dry cat food are commonly available in kitten formulations, and there are pros and cons to feeding each. To decide which option best suits your kitten’s needs, talk with your veterinarian and get their recommendation. Here are some pros and cons of each: 1 Wet cat food is higher in moisture, so it can be beneficial in keeping kittens hydrated, flushing out the urinary tract, and helping kidneys stay healthy. However, wet food tends to stick to the teeth more, which can be associated with dental disease and painful cavity-type problems for cats. 2 Dry cat food is easier to feed in mutli-cat homes and can help scrape tartar from the teeth. However, some cats can overeat with dry food and gain excessive weight, which can be associated with arthritis, heart problems, blood pressure problems, respiratory problems, or diabetes mellitus—just to name a few.

How much weight do kittens gain?

A general rule of thumb in kittens is that they typically gain about 1 pound per month. Often, a kitten’s weight is about 1 pound at 1 month (4 weeks), 2 pounds at 2 months (8 weeks), and so on until about 4-5 months. Kittens do most of their growing (both height and weight) within the first year and then stabilize from there.

How long does it take for a kitten to grow?

Kittens do most of their growing (both height and weight) within the first year and then stabilize from there. Many of the growth plates of the bones in the kitten skeleton close by about one year old. At this time, after much of the growth is finished, your vet will typically switch your kitten to an adult diet.

How does a cat food bowl work?

There are some cat food bowls that work on timers to automatically release a measured amount of dry food at specified times. Kittens can also learn to use their instinctual hunting behavior to work for part of their daily food. This helps keep your kitten healthy mentally and physically.

Why is my kitten not eating?

Reasons Your Kitten May Not Be Eating. If your new kitten is not eating well or has diarrhea, call your vet and schedule another checkup. Sometimes intestinal parasites can cause gastrointestinal upset in kittens. It is common for kittens to come home already infected with parasites.

How to track a cat's eating habits?

One way to deal with this is by using a microchip-activated feeder that only opens when it scans your kitten’s microchip. Just make sure another cat is not guarding this feeder and keeping the kitten from eating.

Is wet cat food good for cats?

Wet cat food is higher in moisture, so it can be beneficial in keeping kittens hydrated, flushing out the urinary tract, and helping kidneys stay healthy. However, wet food tends to stick to the teeth more, which can be associated with dental disease and painful cavity-type problems for cats. Dry cat food is easier to feed in mutli-cat homes ...

How much should a 2 week old kitten eat?

A 2 to 3-week old kitten will still need to be fed every 2-3 hours and it should consume at least 1/2 tablespoon of formula or milk during each meal. If a kitten is nursing from its mother, you'll have to depend on how much the kitten weighs to know whether or not it is consuming enough food. Between days 8 through 18, its weight should increase ...

How much should a kitten weigh at the end of week 8?

The mother cat may need to be separated from kittens that are relentlessly trying to nurse more than they should, but by the end of week eight, a kitten should weigh about two pounds from the combination of limited nursing and eating regular kitten food. Illustration: The Spruce / Emilie Dunphy.

How long should a kitten nurse?

A kitten will nurse for about 45 minutes at a time every 2 to 3 hours for the first week of life. The rest of the time will be spent sleeping. Kittens that are bottle-fed should consume about a tablespoon, or 15 ml, of special kitten formula at each feeding. This is very time consuming for someone who is bottle-feeding a newborn kitten, ...

How much does a kitten weigh at birth?

Week One Feeding Schedule. A kitten typically weighs about 3 to 3.7 oz. at birth but will gain weight rapidly from nursing. For the first several weeks of life, a newborn kitten will depend entirely on its mother to provide it with food. Its eyes and ears are sealed shut when it's born, so it will rely on the pheromones its mother gives ...

Do kittens grow in the first year?

Pisit Koolplukpon / Getty Images. Just like human babies, kittens do a lot of growing in the first year of their lives. The kind of food and how much a kitten consumes directly affects their growth rate and development.

Do kittens need to be bottle fed?

Most kittens do just fine without human intervention, but if a kitten needs to be bottle-fed, either because the mother cat is absent, ill, or rejects the kitten, you'll want to weigh the kitten regularly to make sure its weight reflects a healthy and normal growth rate of a kitten.

How to take care of a 2 week old kitten?

At two weeks, they still require some form of heat source as they cannot create heat on their own. I know some people will place a heating pad under a blanket to help keep the kittens warms, and some will use heat lamps.

What to do if you find a 2 week old kitten?

If you find a 2 Week Old kitten, try your best to find the mother. Kittens this desperately need their mother to help them get big and strong. However, if no mother is found, that is not a death sentence to your kitty. Educate yourself, get the supplies you need, and become the kitty mother of the world!

How long do kittens need to be bottle fed?

You will probably have guessed that a newborn kitten will need to be bottle-fed. And you are correct. Kittens need to be bottle-fed until anywhere from 6-8 weeks. You do not want to try to ween the kittens off the bottle before they are ready.

How old are kittens when they start to walk?

Kittens at two weeks old will start to try and take their first few steps. It will be wobbly and uncoordinated. So do not fear if you see a kitten that looks about two weeks struggling to walk. They are just learning and will be quite wobbly for some time.

How long does it take for an orphaned kitten to suckle?

This is by far the hardest part of caring for an orphaned kitten. At two weeks they may need either a syringe or be able to suckle a bottle on their own. In the previous section, I talked about how to prepare the bottle.

How to tell if a kitten is 2 weeks old?

First, let’s talk about how to tell if a kitten is two weeks old. A two-week-old kitten will have their eyes open and their hearing is getting better each day. They respond better to sounds, though their sight is still not the best. Their ears are starting to point outwards but still are mostly turned inwards. ...

How much sleep does a kitten need?

And cats in general tend to sleep a lot. Kittens under two months generally will sleep around 20 hours a day , if not more. I know that seems like a lot, and they will gradually begin sleeping less and less as they grow.

How to care for a four week old kitten?

Neonatal—newborn to four-week-old—kittens require round-the-clock care. Feeding: Use specific kitten bottles to feed the kittens with kitten formula. Make sure you never feed kittens “Cat Milk,” which is designed for adult cats, or cow’s or goat’s milk, which could give the kittens life-threatening diarrhea.

How to feed kittens formula?

After they’re done eating, you’ll need to burp the kittens. Put them on your shoulder or on their stomachs and pat them gently until they burp.

How often do kittens urinate?

If you notice the kittens are having trouble urinating or defecating, consult a veterinarian. A healthy kitten will urinate almost every time you stimulate them and have a bowel movement once or twice a day. For more on caring for kittens younger than four weeks old, including health concerns, go to.

How to keep a kitten warm in the cold?

Keep kittens warm by building a soft nest, like a box with a blanket and Snuggle Safe or a heated rice sock or water bottle. Make sure that kittens have room to move away from the heat if they want.

How old do kittens have to be to go to the bathroom?

Kittens younger than four weeks old must be stimulated to go to the bathroom after each feeding. A mother cat uses her tongue to do this, but you can use a warm and damp cotton ball, tissue, or washcloth to gently rub the kitten’s anal area.

How to tell if a kitten is dehydrated?

Signs of dehydration include limpness, unresponsiveness, sunken eyes, and lethargy. You can also check by pulling up the skin at the scruff of the neck when the kitten is in a standing position.

How old are kittens when they start to play?

At two weeks old, kittens become more aware of their surroundings and begin to interact more with their siblings, if they have them. However, they still spend most of their time asleep. Their ears will start to unfold and they will start to play, develop fine motor skills, and take their unsteady first steps.

How long do cats need kitten food?

They may need to continue eating kitten food until between 18 months and 2 years of age.

How to get kittens to eat wet food?

Starting with wet kitten food or moistened dry kibble will help through the transition. Start by combining one part of warm water and three parts of dry or wet kitten food (it should look like oatmeal). Over the next two weeks, gradually decrease the amount of water and increase the amount of food. By six to eight weeks, kittens can eat wet ...

How long does it take for a kitten to eat wet food?

Over the next two weeks, gradually decrease the amount of water and increase the amount of food. By six to eight weeks, kittens can eat wet or dry cat food at will. With wet food and/or dry food, you can provide a greater variety of flavors and textures, which will help support her adventurous nature. You can also feed a combination of wet and dry ...

How do kittens get nutrition?

Newborn kittens get their nutrition from their mother through nursing. If separated from their mother, a kitten milk replacer may be used. The weaning process may begin around three to four weeks of age, at which time more solid foods can be introduced.

Why is it important to feed kittens?

Choosing the right food for your kitten is an important decision. Nutrition supports her growth, development and can even affect her behavior. Giving her high-quality kitten food now will help support many long, healthy years as an adult cat. If you’re a first-time cat owner, choosing the right food and knowing how much to feed ...

How long can you keep wet food in the refrigerator?

Any leftovers in her bowl should be discarded. You can store an open can of wet food in the refrigerator for up to 24 hours. Bring it up to room temperature before serving. The chart below can help you determine how much to feed your kitten.

Do you need a feeding chart for kitten food?

Feeding charts are required on all kitten food packaging, but they don’t all look the same. Pay close attention to the chart on your kitten’s food label to ensure you’re feeding her the right amount based on her age and weight.

How many meals should a 4 week old kitten eat?

While a 4-week-old kitten will need about 5 small meals per day, you can reduce his daily feedings to 2-3 daily meals by the time he’s 6 months old. You can also give your kitten treats throughout the day, but calories from treats shouldn’t exceed 5-10% of total daily caloric intake.

When can kittens start eating adult food?

Around the time of your kitten’s first birthday, he can start the transition from kitten food to an adult diet. Note, however, that larger-breed cats may continue to grow until they’re 3-4 years old and may continue to eat a growth-oriented diet.

How many calories should a kitten eat a day?

Kittens in this age group need around 30 calories per pound of body weight per day. For example, an 8-pound kitten should consume about 240 calories per day.

How long does it take for a kitten to start weaning?

4-8 Weeks Old Kitten. Kittens usually begin the weaning process around their 4th week. During this time, they’ll start gradually shifting from milk or formula onto a solid food diet, which delivers the protein, fatty acids, and nutrients that fuel their early development.

How old is a kitten when he starts eating?

4-6 Months Old Kitten. During this stage, your kitten will start to settle into his dietary routine. That’s why it’s vital to make sure you’re establishing good habits for adulthood. Feeding a varied diet can keep your kitten from becoming finicky and keep him mentally stimulated.

How to keep a cat healthy?

Regular exercise and a well-controlled diet will help to prevent obesity and keep your cat in good shape. Whether you feed your cat homemade cat food or the best commercial cat foods, it’s critical to feed him the right amount per day. But there’s no single amount of food that every cat should eat each day.

Why is it important to feed a cat clean water?

Proper hydration helps to prevent constipation and reduces the risk of urinary system diseases like urinary tract infection and blockage.

What is the best way to feed a kitten?

This allows the kitten to suckle, as if from her mother. If you do not have a feeding set, then the next best option is a syringe, which you can use to drip the milk into the kitten's mouth.

How to feed a kitten?

Position the kitten similarly to the way he would nurse from his mother, with her head straight, feet down, and stomach resting. When attempting to feed your kitten for the first time, get a drip of milk on the end of the syringe or teat.

How many meals should a kitten eat a day?

A kitten aged between six to 10 weeks old needs to be fed six to eight meals a day, while a kitten aged 10 weeks to six or seven months needs four meals a day and a kitten up to nine months needs three meals a day. Note that it's not until adulthood that two meals a day for a cat is acceptable.

How long should kittens nurse from their mother?

Ideally, kittens should stay near and nurse from their mother cat for up to eight weeks prior to being separated and/or adopted. In the case of a rescue, death of the natural mother, or when circumstances cause cat mothers to reject one or more of her litter, human intervention is necessary.

What temperature should a kitten be for a baby?

Newborns usually snuggle close to mum and tend to run quite hot. The ideal temperature is 96–100 °F (35.6–3 7.8 °C) for the first three weeks of life.

What to do if you can't have replacement milk?

Have a backup plan if you can't have replacement milk right away. The ideal milk is to use replacement queen's milk. If you do not have any, then use boiled water to feed the kitten and purchase some replacement milk immediately.

How to clean a kitten's anal area?

As the kitten relieves herself, wipe it away with the cotton wool. Finish with a clean piece of cotton wool to clean up her bottom, and then you are done until the next feed.

Assessing The Kitten Before Feeding

Bottle fed kittens should be fed every two or three hours during the daytime: if they are fed this frequently, there should be no need to feed them during the night.

Preparing The Bottle

Make up the solution of milk according to the instructions on the kitten formula packet. If using powder, you need to mix well to make sure that there is no clumping.

Feeding Process

When you have finished feeding, play with the kitten for a while to encourage movement: this will assist with burping, removing gas that may have entered the stomach.

Finishing Up The Routine