Do Baby Kittens Drink Milk

If you really want to give them milk then you can purchase special cat kitten milk which is lactose free from your pet food store vets or supermarket but they really don t need it.

Do baby kittens drink milk. Water makes up 70 of a cat s body and is vital for survival. Kittens will drink their mother s milk for the first few weeks of life or a specially designed kitten formula milk if necessary. Water is all they will ever need. A newborn kitten can only digest milk and more specifically the milk from a female cat.

Up until kitties reach approximately 1 month in age anything other than their mother s milk is totally unnecessary. Feedings will occur less frequently and a bowl of formula or other liquid kitten food should be made available for a kitten to start drinking from. However kittens who are old enough to separate from their mothers are old enough to drink water instead of milk. The only milk that is healthy for kittens to drink is either their mother s or they will need a kitten milk replacer which can also be called kmr or kitten milk formula.

By the end of week 5 a kitten should only be nursing three times a day but at each meal it should be consuming about 3 tablespoons of milk or formula. Chances are you imagined a kitten drinking from a bowl of milk possibly with a bow around her neck. Baby kittens drink milk from bottles. Feeding the wrong sort of milk such as cow s milk can have short term and long term effects including diarrhea dehydration nutritional deficiencies and long term health problems due to poor growth.

However they will be fully weaned by around 8 9 weeks of age. No other sustenance not even water is yet required. Cats and kittens do not need to drink milk and can live their entire lives without having one lap of milk.