Care for newborn kittens

Newborn kittens: care properly
Caring for a newborn kitten is perhaps no less a matter of responsibility than caring for a baby! When a kitten is born, it is blind and deaf, but it has a very sharp sense of smell and smell, therefore, from the very first hours of its life, it begins to look for the mother’s nipples, and on the fourth day – to stimulate the milk supply with its paws. In this situation, in no way case you can separate a kitten from a cat, because it can harm both him and his mom, who may have mammary glands. If newborn kittens without a cat hit you, you will have to nurse them yourself, and you need to approach this very responsibly.
How to feed a newborn kitten?
Of course, the best feed for newly born kittens will be mother’s milk. If the cat died during childbirth, it is best to urgently find another, and enclose the kittens. However, it also happens that you have to feed the kitten yourself, and this is also possible. Moreover, even if the cat feeds the kittens, already at 3-4 weeks of their life, you still have to do feeding, especially if the litter is very large, so these skills should be mastered in advance.
If you are wondering how to feed newborn kittens, then try to start with milk: two teaspoons of medium-fat variety will be quite enough. You can even use powdered milk, which is dissolved with honey or a pinch of sugar, and it is better to completely abandon the fat cow’s milk at first. Daily the amount of milk can be increased by one spoon, and later give a little milk porridge, prepared the same way as for a newborn baby.
If you feed a kitten from the first day, then get ready for the first 10 days to do it every 2-3 hours, including night time! The best way is to feed the kitten with a small sterile nipple bottle. Feeding formula cannot be stored! Bottles and nipples should be regularly boiled and cleaned. And in no case do not pour milk into the mouth of a kitten with a pipette and do not force food into the kitten: it can get into the respiratory tract and subsequently cause pneumonia. It is better to feed the kitten by holding it in your arms and holding it in a straightened position – this way it will be easier for the baby to eat and otrygivat air.
A month after the birth, the newborn kitten is already able to digest meat, but for these purposes it is better to choose light, dietary varieties. Roll a pea-sized boiled or raw meat ball and place the kitten in your mouth. When a baby tastes this food, you can gradually introduce chicken or fish mash into the diet, as well as finely chopped lean beef. It should be remembered that a newborn kitten will not do without dairy food: when too intensively fed with meat, the newborn kitten does not poop, and this can become a serious problem. It is better to add cottage cheese to the baby’s diet, and already from 8 weeks it can be gradually transferred to kitten food.
The weight of a newborn kitten is up to 120 g, but every week it will gain about 100 g, and from the third week the seals will gain weight faster than cats. If weight gain is bad, you should definitely show the kitten to the doctor.
If the cat has mastitis
Sometimes kittens are transferred to artificial nutrition because the cat suffers from mastitis – inflammation of the mammary glands, provoked by the stagnation of milk. It is very disappointing when a full-fledged healthy mother can not feed the kids because of mastitis. Therefore, the owner should be safe in advance and carefully monitor that the kittens suck the milk from all nipples alternately.
If mastitis has already occurred, it is necessary to quickly relieve pain and prevent further development of the disease. Well help compresses with camphor oil. A cabbage leaf scalded with boiling water can be applied to sore nipples. But if the improvement does not occur within 2-3 days – immediately contact your veterinarian.
In addition to the usual mastitis, there is septic mastitis – the nipples are very inflamed, in the milk there are impurities of pus and blood. This condition is considered life-threatening for cats and kittens, so if you have acute septic mastitis, be sure to consult a veterinarian!
How to care for a newborn kitten?
Regardless of whether the kitten has a mom or not, you still have to wash it yourself. Even if the cat is caring for her kittens herself, it will be a great help for her. True, this does not mean that the kittens need to be bathed intensively – it will be enough to wipe their fur with a damp cloth if the mother does not cope.
Be sure to ensure that there are no parasites on the cat, since fleas in newborn kittens can cause the strongest allergic reaction. In addition, fleas are carriers of dangerous diseases that threaten not only the health of kittens, but also their lives.
Kittens are born blind and deaf, but develop very quickly. Already at the age of 8 days, eyes gradually begin to open, and by two weeks kittens begin to hear.