Look what I found in my back yard...

[Red_Dazes]

I don't know about kittens. But for my Ferrets i've found that when I am trying to get them to change food they just wont do it. They have one food they like and won't touch the others. However they love liquid food, so what I started doing was taking the dry food I wanted them to eat and turning it into a liquid (icky blender but it cleans easy) Just the dry food and some water (though since they like the formula you might want to mix it with that too) and start feeding them mush first, then progress to mushy chunks, then whole pieces with formula mixed in, then just the dry food.

It worked on my sisters puppy as well. Might be worth a shot.

[Kogarashi]

Our vet has said that generally cats will starve themselves rather than eat something they don't like.

::writes this down for later:: Thanks for the heads-up, Dreamstalker. Only cats I've ever had were strays that adopted us, so we only ever had a bag of dry food for them and if they didn't eat it, they were left to fend for themselves. They were also outside-all-the-time cats, due to my mother's pet allergies.

[Ratha]

Four to six weeks though? How young do you wean kitties? They look like they're all set to go to new owners, but that sounds really young.

Kittens are usually weaned off milk round five or six weeks old. But ideally they should stay with their mother until about eight weeks old.

[crazyofficeclerk]

This worked for me when I brought the kitten home from living in the store. I took really hot tap water and mixed it with the dry food. I would cover the dry food so that there was a little bit of warm water on the top. The kitten would lick the water and then eventually started to eat the food. I gradually decreased the amount of water until there was only dry.

[XCashier]

I'm still bringing them to Banfield to get the pet plan and get them their shots and neuter/spay before I give them up. The boyfriend agreed to do that, and may have a co-worker interested in them when they get older. He said that the guy will repay us for the shots and pet plan if they decide to get them.

Sounds like a good plan. Definitely spay & neuter them; there are more than enough kittens to go around. I hope the coworker does follow through with the adoption.

(I still want them... )

Perfectly understandable. They are both very lovely, and quite irresistable.

[BookstoreEscapee]

Awwww!!! My kitties were 2 days old when they were found. My cousin's wife took care of them for 7 weeks. She fed them kitten formula and eventually got them onto wet and then dry food. They were fully "weaned" (don't know what happened to their mother) by the time we got them. They've been perfectly healthy, though.

I don't have any advice, since I've never raised a baby kitty, but I just wanted to say awwww!!!

[Kyree]

I know it's been a looong time since I started this thread, but I figured you guys wouldn't mind and update about kittens.

I do have some bad news, first. The boy kitten passed away a few days later. We have no idea why. We made him a grave and marker in our back yard.

Onto the good news!

Our dogs have been doing really well settling in (we adopted them a few weeks ago), so we have upgraded them from sleeping in the kitchen to letting them sleep upstairs on the second floor with us. We have a baby gate set up at the door way next to the bottom of the stairs so they can't get to the cats while we're sleeping. Their wandering room includes our bedroom, office, the hallway, the staircase, and about 3 feet of hallway at the base of the stairs which has the bathroom the kitten is in at the end of.

This morning my boyfriend and I wake up, and we can't find our pit bull, Spud. He's not in the bedroom, not in the office, not hiding in any closets. The rooms that he could get into have the doors shut. The bathroom door is shut. He didn't jump the gate into the other rooms...

And then, on a whim, my boyfriend pushes open the bathroom door where the kitten is, and his heart stops for a minute....pit bull Spud is in the bathroom.....where is the kitten? Oh no, where is it? Oh god.......
















My boyfriend thought the worst when he saw Spud in the bathroom, because Spud is a typical 8-month old puppy who likes to play way too rough to be near a 4 week old kitten. It was a nice surprise happy ending.

And now Spud thinks he's a mommy. He babies the kitten, he gets worried when he can't find her. He protects her from the other dogs (My boyfriend's parents have two dogs that visit often), and bathes her almost daily.

The bathing part is adorable, except it makes her smell like wet cat and dog breath

[BlaqueKatt]

the second pic looks like he's asking you why you kept him away from his new friend.

[XCashier]

That is so sweet! Dogs have excellent parental instincts, and it's marvelous that your Spud has taken so well to the little girl kitty.

Sorry about the boy.

[One-Fang]

AWwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!!!!!!!!

That is so cute! Good on wee Spuddy!

[Akasa]

Sounds like what happened with my mom's dog and a kitten we found in a tree. The kitten was about 4 weeks old when we found him in the tree and Nina(the dog who has never had puppies) decided he was her baby. The kitten is full grown now and still rough houses w/ the dog, and sometimes acts more like a dog than a cat. I've seen him charge across mud puddles after birds before.