caring for a 4-day-old orphan and have a few questions…

Home The Daily Kitten Cat Chat Forum Cats & Kittens caring for a 4-day-old orphan and have a few questions…

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  • #810657
    Elle
    Participant

    hi! i’m currently caring for a kitten who is about four days old and has been separated from her mom since birth from what we can tell. she was found in a bush in our neighborhood being circled by dogs and we couldn’t find the mother, so her care has been on me ’round the clock for the last few days.

    the kitten seems great. she’s eating, she’s peeing clear/pale yellow fluid regularly, she’s strong, and seems to have a ton of fight in her, but i have a few questions and all the information i’m from various sources seems to conflict.

    could anyone with advice help me here?

    1. is KMR absolutely necessary? i live in an area with a few ethnic stores and a pharmacy but i’m unable to find it here and my transportation is limited at the moment, so i’ve been feeding the kitten a recipe i found online that seems to be doing the trick. (evaporated milk and water in equal parts, yogurt, mayonnaise, egg yolk, cod liver oil, etc.) i’ve seen several people state that their kittens thrived on similar recipes, so i’m wondering, could i get by with this for a bit longer or should getting the KMR be a top priority?

    2. on her second morning with me, she had her first poop and had passed it completely on her own. (walked away for a moment, came back and there it was.) it was a golden yellow with a bit of brown and not *soft* but certainly not especially firm. she had two other poops that day, both similar in color, then no poop on her third day, and a small poop early this morning that was a darker shade of yellow. (the first two also being passed without any stimulation.) googling you find that yellow poops are either the poop of death, then find other results that say yellow poops are perfectly normal and EXPECTED from a bottle-fed kitten. can someone please explain? as i said, the poops are perfectly normal in consistency, it’s just the color that is off.

    3. aside from the little poop we had this morning, she hasn’t pooped in two days now and i’m beginning to worry? her tummy looks pretty swollen, but it doesn’t feel firm (it’s squishy!) and it doesn’t seem to be bothering her. should i be worried at all?

    4. she eats anywhere from 3-8 mLs per feeding with an average of 6 mLs and i try to feed her every 3 hours, but she seems to like to eat a lot and sleep a lot and i’m wondering if i should start waking her up and feeding her on an actual schedule rather than whenever she’s awake? (it’s the weekend, so i’ve been with her 24/7, pretty much.)

    i apologize for such a long, wordy post, but i’m really just hoping to keep this little gal happy and healthy and any advice would be appreciated.

    #810669
    jcat
    Participant

    Hi, Elle, bless you for looking after this little one. Click on the pink tag ‘orphans’ for more advice and this video is also great for covering the basics but it sounds like you are doing great.

    1) Yes, you can get by with kitten glop — or canned goats milk (in the baking aisle at Walmart if you have one of those near you). Powdered KMR is a complete and scientifically formulated food but does seem to have the disadvantage of often causing constipation (the canned KMR is better but more expensive) so if you have a glop recipe that works for you, no problem! Add some gelatin to the glop if you can (there is a recipe on Messybeast.com) as it has all the amino acids that kittens require when growing (it’s made from cows hooves — icky but good for cats). You can order KMR on line if you need to, from amazon.com (through this site, it helps to subsidise its running costs) or entirelypets.com.
    2) Mustard yellow to tan-coloured poops ARE normal for a kitten taking in nothing but milk. Sometimes they oxidise darker over time. But once she starts eating solids, her poops should be darker and for a full grown cat, eating entirely solids, yellow poop could be an indication of a bacterial infection or something else.
    3) Every other day is fine for a kitten. If it got to three days, I would start diluting her glop and any more and I’d get her vet checked.
    $) Best to keep her on a regular schedule. Their tummies are so tiny, they don’t hold much. She should wake when she’s hungry to feed but safest not to rely on that, wake her when it’s feeding time.
    Hope that helps!

    #810822

    that video never gets old!

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