Weening Kittens with Food

Video Transcript

"In this segment I'm going to talk about food for weaning kittens. So weaning is the time, the transition time between when the kitten stops nursing exclusively from mom and starts getting nutrition on its own. These kittens are three and a half to four weeks old and they're going to start experimenting with food right now. So this liquid in here is actually a milk replacer liquid that you can get commercially. It comes either as a powder or a pre-made liquid and you can put it in a little jar like this. Put a little on your finger, touch it to the kitten's lips, see if he likes it and let him explore. Once he is ready he'll dip his nose in there he may stick his foot in there and play with it. Check it out and taste it. And this is basically the way you let kittens start to experience eating food. The other thing you want to do is take some dry kitten food and soak it in warm water for fifteen or twenty minutes so it starts to get soft and they're able to start to crunch it, play with it. They might pull it out of the cup and bat it around like it's a toy. And then you can also use canned kitten food, is the other option. And the can kitten food is mushy like that. And you can do the same as you do with the liquid there. Put a little bit on their lip, let them get, smell it, have a little bit of the taste of it. And a lot of times until they're six weeks old or so they might just pick one or the other of the foods."