What should I do if my kitten won’t nurse after birth?

Apr 11,2024
4Min

What should I do if the kitten won’t suck milk after birth? Use a spoon to slowly pour the milk into the kitten’s mouth. The speed should not be too fast, and the kitten’s head should not be raised too high. Fill the milk with an injection needle and put it in. Feed the kitten one drop at a time in the kitten's mouth to prevent choking; kittens who can suck like milk bottles, so don't cut the holes on the nipples too big. This method is more natural.

1) Feed with a spoon

This is a very slow method that requires a lot of patience. Each time, the milk from the spoon must be slowly poured into the kitten's mouth. Do not pour it too fast to prevent the milk from flowing into the kitten's lungs. When feeding a cat, do not raise the kitten's head too high, otherwise the milk will enter the lungs. Newborn kittens are not fully developed and will not show signs of sadness or coughing when milk is fed into their lungs. Suitable for weak kittens that cannot suck on their own.

2) Use a syringe to drip milk

Similar to feeding with a spoon, it is suitable for weak kittens that cannot suck by themselves, but it is cleaner and faster. Fill the syringe with the kitten's amount of milk, put it in the cat's mouth, and drop one drop at a time so that the kitten can swallow it calmly without choking. Write down the amount you feed each time. If the kitten knows that the milk comes from here, it may start to wash the tip of the syringe to suck the milk out. At this time, you'd better switch to feeding it with a bottle.

3) Feed the cat with a bottle

Healthy kittens who are good at sucking milk like to use bottles. This is also a more natural way of feeding. Kittens will eat by themselves until they are full. The size of the nipple hole is important. You need to cut a hole yourself. The size of the hole is enough to turn the bottle upside down so that only one drop of milk drips out at a time. If the hole is too large, milk will flow out of the hole one after another, causing the kitten to suck it into its lungs when breathing. If you need to squeeze the bottle to let the milk flow out, the hole is too small, which will make the kitten have a hard time eating and not eat enough.

4) Food tube feeding

The easiest, cleanest and fastest, but requires the right tools and skilled skills to avoid filling the lungs with milk. If the kitten is very weak, sometimes this is the only way to feed it.

Every time after feeding your cat, wipe it with a warm wet tissue to remove any leaked milk. Don't feed too much at once, especially in the beginning. After feeding, use your hands or a dry towel to imitate the mother cat's licking motion and massage the kitten's body, or gently massage the kitten's sides until it burps.

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