Newborn 1 Week Old Kittens
Kittens come into the world with their eyes and ears closed and spend the first week or so of their lives blind and deaf.
Newborn 1 week old kittens. Newborn kittens may nurse about every 1 2 hours. The newborn kitten weighs just ounces and easily fits into the palm of your hand. So a kitten weighing 3 ounces will need about 24 ounces of milk replacement every 24 hours. In the high kitten season such as spring and summer it is not unusual for us to find a nest of unattended newborn kittens or 1 week old kitten seemingly the runt of the litter that has been abandoned by its mother somewhere.
You probably won t notice much of a difference between a newborn kitten and a one week old kitten but it will start to be more active as the week goes on. Kittens from six to 12 weeks old should be fed four times a day as you gradually decrease their access to milk replacer. Weight newborn kittens weigh between 90 100 grams. As a rule of thumb for every ounce of kitten body weight he or she needs 8 ccs of formula.
At about three to four weeks old they can be offered milk replacer from a bowl and then small amounts of moistened kitten food four to six times a day. The mother stimulates urination and defecation in her kittens by licking them. Upon finding them we instinctively decide to take them back with us and take care of them. Like a human baby a newborn kitten will need to be fed frequently approximately every two to three hours.
A newborn kitten technically a kitten under two weeks of age needs feeding attention day and night until she is old enough to begin the process of switching to solids. You can do this once the kitten reaches four weeks of age when your kitten is no longer a newborn. The blue eyes that kittens are born with may start to change color. Rescuing these poor kittens is a noble decision there is no doubt about it.
By 1 week of age the kitten should have roughly doubled her birth weight. One week old kitten. Kittens won t be playing with littermates just yet and the only social interaction between each other will be battling for a nipple to nurse from. While it is important to keep an eye on the mother and her kittens too much interference may result in the mother.
Know that you can wean an orphan kitten early. If no mother is present they must be fed with a bottle and kitten formula every two to three hours by a knowledgeable caregiver stimulated to go to the bathroom and kept an appropriate temperature. To assist you in your kitten care you can picture the correct amount if you know one teaspoon is just. One week old kittens belong with their mother full time.
When they are awake they stay close to their mother. Its umbilical cord will fall off within two or three days but its eyes and ear canals will not be open yet. Kittens open their eyes and ears. Tiny food processing factories.
In the first week of life kittens do little more than sleep and eat. 1 3 weeks.