Welcome to Animal Posse, the podcast dedicated to the people and rescues, making a difference in the lives of animals. Today I am bringing you a special segment straight from a recent class that I did all about bottle feeding and fostering kittens. So let's dive in. I'm Dixie. I run the Unwanted Feline Organization. I have been a foster for probably about 17 years. I primarily do bottle babies. I do all ages, of course, but I specialize more in bottle babies 'cause I could take 'em to work with me. First we're gonna go over just trying to determine the age of a kitten. Just in case you find a kitten, or in case you wanna get involved with helping a kitten. A lot of people on social media will post 'em. Now, one thing that I do wanna say about that is if you ever see people posting pictures of bottle kittens on social media, the first thing, you don't wanna jump in and take 'em right away. You wanna tell 'em they need to wait for the mom to come back. Because most of the time the mom's just moving 'em around and give that mom time to come back, and pick 'em up. I say to wait about eight to 10 hours. If it is gonna be a newborn, especially like with the cord attached, then you definitely don't wanna wait longer than, I'm gonna say six hours probably max. I. Now if it's in a bad spot, like busy highway, middle of a sidewalk, that's a little bit different story, bad rain. I know the last ones that were picked up, they were in a puddle, so they picked 'em up because if they didn't, they would've most likely drowned. So the newborn kittens are gonna look pretty bad. Their ears are gonna be folded in. Their eyes are gonna be closed. They're not gonna really look like a kitten. And so if you're gonna get a kitten this age, of course, one this age is gonna have to be fed more frequently. And I'll go through that too as we go on with the presentation. When you have a two week old kitten, that's gonna be when they're gonna start to walk and their eyes should be open at that point, or at least starting to open at that point. When you get to a three week old kitten, they're gonna start moving around pretty good, and you'll notice that their teeth are gonna come in. That's gonna be when you're gonna start weaning. By four weeks old, they should have all of their teeth, and you're gonna notice that they're gonna start running around and playing with each other. And then by five weeks, they're almost fully functioning. Now, when they are newborns, between like one and three weeks, they're not gonna be able to go to the bathroom by themselves. You have to help them with that. So you do stimulate them to go to the bathroom. I'm gonna show you how to do that too with my stuffed animal because we could not find bottle babies to bring with us today, which I'm not complaining about these are gonna be your basic supplies that you're gonna need if you are fostering for a rescue. For the most part, the rescue is gonna provide all this to you. If bottle feeding is something that you think you might be interested in, I would say just get some of the supplies to have on hand. They're pretty inexpensive, and that way you have it if an emergency comes up. All right, so first thing, we're gonna have a bottle. This is gonna be the classic nipple that comes with these bottles. I absolutely hate these nipples. I use 'em unless I don't have the other type. Now they don't come with a hole in 'em. So what you're gonna have to do is you do have to cut a small hole in them. And when you do cut the hole in them, you also wanna make sure that it's gonna just do a drip out. You don't want it to come pouring out. 'cause if it's pouring out, it's gonna be too much milk coming out and that can actually aspirate the kitten. The nipples that I use are called a miracle nipple, and you're gonna see it's a lot smaller. You'll see this miracle nipple, it is made for tiny baby animals. So most of them tend to take that pretty easily. It does fit on the bottle. What you're gonna do is you would actually unscrew that bottle and you're gonna remove that other nipple and put that one in its place. Now, another thing that you could do is you can use a small syringe. So you could put either of the nipples on the edge of a small syringe. And this works too. Now, only thing with doing this is sometimes when they use these syringes, they can easily suck it out of the syringe. Sometimes they can't, if they can't, do not push the syringe because you can aspirate 'em and then another tool that you can actually use is a small paintbrush like this. So if you have a kitten especially a tiny one that's having difficulty with using the the nipple or sucking on the nipple. 'cause some of them will have that problem. You wanna make sure they're getting enough fluid. You can actually use a paintbrush. So what you do with the paintbrush is you would just mix your milk, you're gonna dip the paintbrush in, and then you just put the paintbrush in their mouth. This paintbrush is a way more tedious method. You don't wanna rely solely on this, but this is gonna get them fluid and it's gonna get them the nutrients that they need to help them till they get to the point where they're gonna start suckling more. And this is one of the powdered milks that you can use. You can also go buy a can. The can is a lot easier. It is also a lot more expensive. So most rescues are gonna just go ahead and go with the powder. There will be instructions on it on how to mix it. Most of them are one part powder to two parts water. Now, when you mix 'em, You don't wanna get it too frothy. Sometimes when you mix you, you'll get kind of clumps in it. So you wanna make sure you break those clumps up with a spoon or something when you're mixing it. Bottled water's always gonna be the best you can use tap water, the temperature of the water, we're gonna use warm water You don't wanna use cold water. Another thing, if you don't have access to this, you find kittens. There are emergency formulas that you can make. Don't ever use cow's milk though. Cow's milk will make them very sick 'cause they can't digest it properly. Another good thing that you wanna have on hand too is gonna be Turkey or chicken baby food. you use that for weaning. And also just training them how to eat in general for them to lick off of your finger when we get to that weaning stage. The other thing that you're gonna need is some type of heating pad. These are microwavable discs. I get these off of Amazon, you put 'em in the microwave, it has instructions on the inside of it, depending on your microwave and the wattage of your microwave. These last for eight hours. These are an absolute lifesaver. These are so much better than a heating pad. 'cause I know now a lot of the heating pads have an automatic shutoff feature, so I definitely recommend this. And one of the top things that you wanna do when you have bottle babies is you need to keep them warm. Another thing that you're gonna wanna have on hand is gonna be karo syrup. So most people do have that at home. 'cause you will see, and I'll go over that a little bit more, you can have a sugar crash. If you have a sugar crash, you take a little bit of it on your finger, not even like an eraser size amount and you just rub it on their gums and usually that'll bring them back if they're having a sugar crash. I'm not gonna say it's a common thing. I've done it several times. But it happens enough that you wanna make sure you do have karo syrup on hand. Another thing, this would be something that would be provided by your rescue. It's called propecatlin. And what that is it's a probiotic and an antidiarrheal medication. And so you wanna make sure you do have that on hand. If you ever take kittens from a rescue, ask 'em if they have it, because it's better to have that on hand to not, then not have it on hand. Another thing is gonna be for your cleaning supplies. You wanna have paper towels handy, and you're going to use that to stimulate them to go to the bathroom. All right, so a basic setup. So what I do is I'm gonna use a carrier like this for mine. This is a pretty big carrier. This would be good for them for up to four kittens till they're about four weeks old. It gives them room to, to move around. It's big enough so when they start using a litter box, you can put a little tiny box in there. And I like the top load ones 'cause it's easier when you go to take 'em out. It's not required. But that's just my preference. So what I would do is I would take this heating disc you're gonna put some blankets in here. You always wanna make sure that you do cover the heating pad or the heating disc so it's not too hot. If they get directly on top of it, most of the time they'll move away from it. That's why you wanna have something where they have a little bit of room where they can move away from the heat too, if they wanna move away from the heat. And then, like I said, when they get a little bit older. You would put just a like a little tiny shallow box., and that's what I put in the back of it for a litter box. Now we'll get into the feeding. You wanna feed 'em like they're gonna feed off of mom, so you don't wanna flip 'em over like a human baby. This is an absolute no-no. If you flip 'em over like a human baby, you're gonna end up aspirating them. You wanna make sure that they're upright where they would be on their belly. Think of how they're gonna eat if they are on their mama. So when you mix your formula, you do wanna use warm water. I mix my formula like most people do Baby formula, when I heat it up, I don't heat mine up in the microwave. A microwave will not heat it up evenly. So if you do heat it in the microwave, you have to make sure you shake it, you have to give it a lot more time to cool down. So I will actually do a cup of hot water and I'll put the bottle inside of the hot water until it warms up. And then of course I'm gonna test it on my wrist to make sure it's not too hot for me. Pretty much what you do, with a human baby. They're gonna try to put their paws on your hand. Sometimes they get very frustrated and they will just be like lashing out like crazy, trying to find a place for them to rest. So you might wanna get like a rag or something, wrap that on your hand Or even wrap them up like a little burrito it's just they get very frustrated 'cause they're looking for their mom to put their hands on and she's not there. As far as the bottle feeding, you're gonna gently open their mouth. You're gonna stick the nipple in. Some of them will take to it right away. Some of them, it's gonna take a little bit longer before they realize they can actually suckle on it. So you might wanna do a drop of it to put the milk on the outside of that nipple so they know what's gonna be there. Here's a trick that I use. I like to like actually close my fingers around their mouth and it helps them to suckle If they take in too much milk, they're gonna choke on it. When they choke on it, it's gonna go into their lungs. That's gonna be the aspiration. It can cause pneumonia. Now, even if you're feeding them in the correct posture, you're gonna have some kittens that eat really fast. If you have kittens that eat really fast, you wanna make 'em slow down. So make 'em take it slow, give them a little bit, pull the bottle out, then give them a little bit more. 'cause otherwise, they're going to eat so fast that they will end up choking. If you do have one that ends up choking and you'll notice it right away, you'll hear 'em coughing a little bit. You're just gonna take 'em, turn 'em upside down a little bit and just do a gentle tap on their back. Most of the time it has cleared it for me. I've never had a kitten aspirate. So big thing, feed in a normal position. Do not feed upside down like you would a human baby. If they do start to choke, just gently tap them on their back as you're, you lay their head upside down a little bit. All right, so the frequency of the feedings, a newborn kitten that's gonna be up to a week old is gonna require a feeding every two to three hours. I personally will wake my kittens up to make sure that they do want to eat. So I'm pretty on top of it. Like for a newborn. For me, in the daytime, I feed 'em every two hours. Now when it comes to night, I know it's a pain getting up every two to three hours at night. You can push it closer to the three hour mark at night, as long as you're getting up in the day and doing it every two hours. Once they get to two weeks, the frequency's gonna change a little bit. So at two weeks you're gonna do it every three to four hours. So two to three weeks, every three to four hours. When they get to this stage at night, you can actually sleep like maybe five hours, so you can push it out an hour, provided that they're eating really well during the day. Now I do keep like a baby monitor on mine, so if they do cry, I'll let that natural cry, wake me up and then I'll go see what they need. Three to four weeks is gonna be every four to five hours. And again, at night when you're looking at this, if you're feeding them at a regular frequency during the day, you can really push it out to six hours. So you can actually get some sleep and then four to five weeks old, if they're still on the bottle only, it's gonna be five to six hours. If they're not on the bottle, of course you can just put the food out, offer them the food. You wanna make sure monitor that they're getting all the food. But at night, at four to five weeks, you should be able to get like a seven hour sleep provided that they're eating good. Now, of course all of this can change if they're not feeling well. 'cause I just had some six week old kittens that got sick and I was getting up every two hours in the middle of the night to feed 'em. So provided that they're healthy, this schedule is a pretty good schedule that you can go on. We went through mixing the formula, but I'll go over it again. So again, with the powdered formula, you wanna make sure you mix it so it's nice and smooth. It does have a tendency to get lumps, so I use like a spoon to break it. Now, I've heard a lot of people say, you don't wanna use like a frother or to froth it up. So I've never used that. I'll always just mix it with a spoon. Now another thing that I'm gonna mention too about the the formula there's a lot of things online that tell you need to have a different nipple for each kitten.. I've never done it. I don't know how anybody does that. They're all together, so if one of them has something, they're all gonna get it anyway, so it doesn't really matter. Another thing that they say online is to throw your formula away after every single time you mix it. So if you mix it and you have formula left over, they're like, throw it away. I don't do that. I'll keep it for up to 24 hours. After a feeding, what I'll do with the formula that I've mixed up is if I have any left in my bottle, I'll go ahead and stick it in the refrigerator, take it out, and warm it up in a cup of hot water. When you feed 'em, of course, like I said, some of them get frustrated with eating. Because they're really hungry and they're not understanding how to suck it through the bottle. So you do have to have a little bit of patience with them, especially if you were gonna feed with the paintbrush. This would take a long time. When they're very young a lot of people freak out over them being constipated. When I was new to bottle feeding, this was during a hurricane, a long time ago. And I found a kitten. And so we didn't have any power. I'm trying to bottle feed this kitten. Didn't have to worry about the heating pad because it was like 90 degrees in the house. The kitten didn't wanna go to the bathroom and she's a little tiny kitten, so we're like one to two weeks old and I was absolutely freaking out because I'm like, it's been two days. This kitten didn't use the bathroom yet. So I actually went on social media and this is how I found my vet. And like I was all frantic. I'm like, oh my gosh, I found this kitten. Nobody's open. I'm like, the kitten hasn't pooped in two to three days. And she's don't worry about it unless they're crying and their belly's hard. So I have gone with that since she has told me that. I don't freak out about it. 'cause once it starts coming out, it seems like it doesn't wanna stop. So yeah, that initial poop can sometimes be a little bit of time and it shouldn't be concerning unless the belly is hard and they're like very uncomfortable. And you'll know when they're very uncomfortable because kittens like human babies, they're gonna cry for a couple reasons. They're gonna cry because they're hungry, they have to go to the bathroom or they're cold. So for the most part. The kittens really don't cry unless something's going on. And if you've ruled all three of those out, then at that point is when you'd wanna say, okay, maybe they're not feeling well, and so it could be like they're colicky or something like that. So now there is a trick of course for constipation, where you can put some, like a few drops of olive oil in the bottle. But the problem with that is if you put too much, then you're gonna get diarrhea, which is gonna be a whole nother thing. And the diarrhea is more life threatening to them than anything, just 'cause they are so small. You should see them urinating after every meal. And a lot of the times, pooping, it should be a small amount. You will notice too that kittens do burp after they eat too. So don't be alarmed by that. So a few minutes after you feed 'em, you will notice that they're gonna burp like a human baby So stimulating to go to the bathroom. Kittens cannot go to the bathroom on their own. You do have to stimulate them to go to the bathroom. So what you're gonna do is you can use a warm, wet paper towel and you just wipe their rear end do it until you notice that they do go. You will notice that they go just give it a few wipes. Usually they'll urinate right away. You might have to go a few more times to see if they're gonna defecate. They don't always defecate. Like I said, don't get too upset over it. A lot of the times when they do defecate, they do sound like it's a shock to them. And they'll do this up until they're probably about six or seven weeks old. They'll go poop and they'll just start screaming So don't be alarmed if they do that. It's like the worst thing is happening to 'em and they all do it. I've never had kittens not do it After every feeding you are gonna do the stimulation until they're about two to three weeks old, at two weeks old, you'll notice that you're gonna have to start changing the bedding in the carrier a lot because they will start just going on their own now. They're not gonna go look for a particular place to go. But now the beauty of this is by the time they're about three weeks old and they're a little bit more mobile, if you stick a box in there, with some newspaper, you gotta make sure it's a very shallow box. They will start going in that box on their own, so you don't have to train 'em to use the litter box. Now they will have a lot of accidents, and even up to the point where they're like six, seven weeks old, they're gonna have a lot of accidents, but they're babies. It's not fun. It's a lot of laundry. Now we're gonna get into the weaning. I actually find the bottle feeding part is easier than the weaning part. Okay. 'cause some of them are very stubborn with wanting to learn how to eat, and it is very messy. We call it swimming and cat food. Before the weaning, this is something that I have always done. And this also helps the kittens get a little bit more nutrients is, I use baby food. Or the other thing I used is called a Churu. So it's C-H-U-R-U and it's a cat treat kind of consistency of baby food. I will take a little bit of that starting at when they're at like about two weeks old. Not a lot because it's, we're not onto the weaning phase yet, but we wanna start introducing them to solids. So I will put a little tiny bit of that into their bottle, shake it up so the bottle's still gonna be liquidy, but there's a little bit of a food particle in it now. You could do that with a cat food too, but the problem with doing that with a cat food is it's a little bit chunkier so that'll clog the nipple. That's why I tend to use the really soft foods like that, and I'll mix it in until we get to a full set of teeth. When you get teeth, you're at weaning age, and you'll notice when you start getting teeth too, because they're gonna start chomping down on that bottle and they might chomp down on your finger a little bit and you'll feel those teeth. At that point you're gonna add a little bit more. I'll do a little tiny bit at two weeks, and as we get closer to three weeks to that weaning age, I'm adding more and more into that bottle. And once they hit between three and four weeks old, you can take a little bit of a gruel. A gruel is equal parts of the food and the formula, mix it together. It's not a full liquid, so it's not gonna flow, but it's still liquidy, if that makes sense. You're gonna take it, put some on your finger, and put it in their mouth and see how they react to it. So some of them are gonna be really receptive to it and they're gonna go right after it. And others are gonna be like, nah, I don't want that. Gimme the bottle. So when you do have the ones that are receptive to it, you can put it in a dish. I notice a lot of the times if you put the dish in front of 'em, they don't understand how to position their head to get to it. I'll put it in a shallow dish. I will actually hold the dish right up to their head, at an angle so they can easily get to it. When they start learning, it's coming out the dish and put the dish on the floor and then put 'em in front of the dish. And that's usually how they'll understand, okay, it's in that dish there, I gotta put my head down to get to it. And then that's usually at the point where we have the swimming in the cat food, they are gonna get covered in cat food from head to toe. It's not fun. Make sure you put a whole big thing in newspapers out. Put the dish there and be prepared to wipe 'em down. You're gonna notice that after they eat the first time that they're gonna actually shake a little bit after they eat. 'cause it's like a little shock to the system and it will affect their stool. So you might see diarrhea because they're getting used to that. But if you're not overfeeding, it should clear up right away. So it shouldn't be anything that's gonna be of concern. If you're weaning them, you can the paintbrush make sure it's new and you haven't used it, of course, for paint. This is actually something that Wildlife Rehabilitators do. I actually learned this tip because I bottle fed rats. This is the tip that I got from learning how to bottle feed rats. And the funny thing about that is actually, like the rats were faster to take the bottle than kittens were. I was actually bottle feeding rats and kittens at the same time. Any questions before we go on to issues? How do you know if they are drinking the bottle too fast? They just gurgle it down. When you put the liquid in here, and if it's going down super fast and you see a lot of bubbles in here, you need to make 'em slow down. You'll notice too, 'cause they'll start choking. Once they do it one time, you know what kitten it is. So you're like typically what I'll do is take my time and give 'em a little bit, pull it back, give 'em a little bit, pull it back. Another thing too I would like to mention is there's a whole bunch of guidelines that are gonna be online too, about how much that you're supposed to feed a one week old kitten. How much you're supposed to feed a two week old kitten. I don't really go by that too much. Okay. Because every kitten is gonna be a little bit different. You wanna make sure that they are eating, you wanna make sure that they're gaining weight. So as long as they're still active and they're eating and they're gaining weight, then you're okay. Okay. I don't concentrate on the numbers. I've been doing this such a long time that, I used to, when I first started out. It would be like, okay, like a one week old kitten is supposed to have this amount every single meal. And I would be feeding 'em and I'm like, okay, this kitten only got half this amount. And, it would make me start panicking that, okay, this kitten isn't getting enough food. But I found out over the years, it's a per kitten basis, so as long as they're getting something, that's what you want 'em to get. Now another thing that I do wanna mention too is when you're in the weaning stage some of them are fast, some of them are slow. So when I offer 'em the gruel, at that point I will offer them a little water, very shallow dish. And I always find that the thing they're most reluctant to do is drink water. That seems to take the longest. So if they're not drinking water, the only way they are getting their fluid is actually in their food. So you wanna make sure that you make the food nice and soupy so that they're getting fluid from the food because they're not, if otherwise, they will dehydrate. 'cause they're not drinking the water, they're not taking the bottle from you. So you just wanna make sure you keep that food nice and moist. We'll go through possible issues. One is gonna be hypothermia, which is gonna be a low body temperature. I always keep my kittens on heating pads. The only time I really see hypothermia is gonna be if somebody brings me a kitten. If somebody brings me a kitten, I've seen 'em before where they're like very lethargic, unresponsive. And at that point I do warm 'em up. If you notice that your kittens are acting like a little bit lethargic and they do feel cold, then you do wanna try to warm 'em up. So some of the ways that you can do that, of course you could put 'em on the heating pad. We stick 'em on our chest, okay? Because they get a lot of heat coming from you. So we'll actually stick 'em in our shirt and we'll hold 'em in our shirt like that and to see how they're responding. With the hypothermia, you don't ever wanna feed a kitten that's cold. So if they're hypothermic, you don't wanna feed 'em anything 'cause it can cause more of a shock to their system. Hypothermia is one of those things that they have to go to the vet for. Okay? So you're gonna do an emergency measure. Try to put 'em on a heating pad to keep 'em warm. Make sure you flip 'em from one side to the other to keep 'em warm. Put 'em on in your chest to help keep 'em warm and then you're gonna get 'em to the vet. 'cause hypothermia is bad. If their temperature drops below a certain level, they're not gonna come back. So the other big one, and I find that this is the biggest one. I touched on this a little bit with not drinking water on their own is gonna be dehydration. The best way to test for dehydration is to pull up their skin and see if their skin kind of stands up. Now, I know on a baby kitten it's gonna be hard 'cause their mom grabs 'em by their scruff. So if you pull up the scruff, a lot of the times, even for a hydrated kitten, I see the scruff staying up because that's where the mom grabs. So actually what I do is I look at the belly. If the skin looks wrinkly on the belly and not firm and tight, that's usually a sign of dehydration. Another thing is you'll notice when you go to pick 'em up one day, they might feel nice and plump and warm and heavy, and the next time you go to pick 'em up, they feel like they lost substance. I guess that's the only way that I can describe it. It's like they lost a lot of weight quickly, but they couldn't have lost weight that quickly 'cause they've been eating okay. That's usually gonna be dehydration. So at that point you need to get 'em fluids. You can offer them some unflavored Pedialyte. If I suspect dehydration, I will give 'em some unflavored Pedialyte mixed in with their formula and you can give them that, but they most likely are gonna need to get some subq fluids. So if you're working with a rescue, then of course your rescue should be able to help you with that. If you're not working with a rescue, then you're gonna definitely wanna take 'em to the vet for that. 'cause dehydration is like the worst thing for 'em. It'll kill him fast. If you catch it early, it's not as much of a problem as if you catch it late. Get yourself a little food scale and you can weigh 'em. if you don't see 'em drinking, assume that they're not drinking water on their own yet and you wanna make sure that they're getting it in their food. The other possible issue is gonna be a sugar crash. This is gonna be what you're gonna have your karo syrup for. With the sugar crash, you'll just notice, like one day the kitten's gonna be absolutely fine. You're not noticing the dehydration. If you check, turn it around, doesn't look like it's dehydrated, but the kitten is just not wanting to move around. That's usually gonna be a sugar crash. It's not gonna hurt to put a little bit of karo syrup on their gums. Just dip your finger in the karo syrup. Tiny little bit. It doesn't have to be a lot. And then you're just gonna open their mouth and rub it on their gums. If it's a sugar crash, they're usually gonna come up it's like almost instantaneous. If you do that, you notice that it's not coming through right away and they're not becoming more alert, then at that point you would wanna getting em to a vet. I'm gonna jump over to illness. Let's say that you you have the dehydration, you could have the possible sugar crash. Either of those two could mean that there's some kind of illness going on that you don't see. So that's why, if you're doing like the little bit of Pedialyte, you're not seeing them be more responsive, you do the Karo syrup, they're not being more responsive, then at that point you wanna almost think there's something else going on. And so it could be some kind of illness. The other signs of illness is just gonna be any kind of eye discharge, any kind of sneezing, anything like that. If they feel warmer, they could have a fever. Usually if they have a fever, it's gonna make 'em lethargic. They're not gonna wanna move around. If you suspect that they are sick, that is something that you don't wanna wait on. you would wanna getting em to a vet. They're very delicate at this age, and they will deteriorate quickly if you don't act right away. Normally, I find if you act right away, you can get 'em through a lot of things. But if you don't act right away, you'll get to that kind of point of no return, and another sign, of course, is gonna be a loss of appetite. Now this is gonna be my favorite topic diarrhea. The thing that is gonna un-alive your kitten the fastest is gonna be diarrhea. 'Cause it will lead to dehydration. 'Cause they're essentially gonna have more fluid coming out of them than is going in them. You wanna be very vigilant about it, and you wanna try to correct the loose stool. So that's where you would have that pro-pectalin come in and also, you're gonna notice the frequency. If they're going, three, four times a day, it's loose stool. It's not as concerning if they're nonstop with it. If it's more frequent than that, and you go to pick 'em up to feed 'em, and you notice that there's diarrhea in there, then that's gonna be a sign of a serious problem. You don't wanna wait. You wanna, give 'em something like pro-pectalin to try to harden it up. And then also you're gonna have to probably think about giving them fluids because for the most part, if they have diarrhea, they are gonna be dehydrated, even if they only have it for a short time. So in that case, what I'll do is I will add usually a little bit of Pedialyte to the formula or to the gruel. And a lot of these things when they get older and they are weaned and they're eating regular food, these are also things that you're gonna look out for. With the diarrhea some things that are gonna. help diarrhea till you can either get to a vet contact the rescue that you're working with. So again, I said pro-pectalin. It's like a probiotic and then there's something in there that's gonna help to bind everything together. So it does help to harden things. Anytime I notice my stool's a little bit too loose and watery, I do pro-pectalin 'cause it's not gonna hurt 'em. The other thing that you can do is you can actually use some canned pumpkin and add a little bit of that to the food or to the bottle. I use the canned pumpkin a little bit more when they're older. You can use it when they're bottle feeding but I just find it a little bit easier when they're actually eating and wean to give them the pumpkin. So what I tend to use is more starch water. You can make rice starch water, you can use pasta, starch water. So basically what you're doing is you're gonna boil your starch. So either your potatoes, your rice, or your noodles. It's gonna be the water that's gonna come off of the top when you're boiling it. So just let a little bit of it boil down. You want that water up on the top, collect that water, let it cool down, and then you can mix that into the bottle. And the starch is gonna help to bind. Of course, you don't wanna give it to 'em once it's coming fresh off as it's boiling and super hot. You want it to be lukewarm and cooled down. Everybody has some kind of starch at home so they can make starch water. And it's one thing that really does help to bind everything, to just help get things a little bit thicker. And you're not losing as much water with the kittens till you can get 'em to the vet. But first sign of diarrhea, monitor it very closely. 'cause that's one thing that'll wipe 'em out very fast. In addition to that is gonna be the color and the consistency. Okay. And so when I'm talking about consistency too, and a little bit of diarrhea, if it looks like melted ice cream and a dark brown color, that's usually them getting used to the food. Keep an eye on it still. Any other color is gonna be concerning. So now one thing I do wanna mention is when there are very little say a week old, their poop is gonna look like mustard, like again, newborn babies. So it'll look like mustard. And then you'll notice the color changes to brown. That's normal. If it is bright yellow, that is a sign that they need to get to the vet asap. Bright yellow poop and mucousy poop is usually gonna indicate parasites that are gonna wipe through your litter very fast. Everybody in the litter is gonna get it. It is something that can be taken care of and they can be dewormed for this. But you need to get them to the vet asap. You cannot wait on this. Again, if you notice in a lot of mucus bright yellow, and when I say bright yellow, it almost resembles like a neon yellow. And it's gonna smell atrocious. But once you see that, they absolutely 100% have to get to the vet. They usually will have vomiting associated with this too. But anytime you see vomiting and diarrhea together, do not wait vet visit. So call the rescue, call whoever you're with and tell 'em you need to get to the vet right away because this is what's going on. You've got vomiting and diarrhea. Take a picture of the poop and send it to them. When you're in the rescue world, it's a totally normal thing. First thing you're gonna do if you're worried about it, take a picture of the poop. You always want rolls. Concerning poop is gonna be bright yellow poop and green poop, those are gonna be problems. Foul smelling is gonna be a problem. We've covered the watery is gonna be a problem. Okay. If it's very hard pellet and you'll notice the difference between that and a roll, that's usually gonna be a constipation problem. Of course blood in the poop is a problem. If you are feeding them too much, you're gonna notice they're gonna get a little bit of diarrhea. Okay, so you want 'em to eat, but if they're eating to the point where they're having diarrhea from eating too much, and usually that's gonna be more of a dark brown poop. It's not gonna be really mucusy. It's just gonna be a lot of dark brown, loose melted ice cream poop. That means you usually are feeding them a little bit too much. So just try to cut back on the food a little bit too. The other thing is gonna be fleas. And this will go from the time too, that you pick up the kittens, or if you find the kittens, take 'em off of social media or whatever. If you see a few fleas. Try to pick 'em off with a flea comb. Don't get overly concerned about a few fleas until you can give 'em like a flea med. You don't give them any topicals until they're a lot older. But if you pick up a kitten that's younger than this and you notice that they are loaded with fleas the fleas can actually cause them to have anemia and it can kill them. So at that point you wanna make sure that you get the fleas off of 'em. Don't use any kind of flea med. Don't use any kind of flea spray. The easiest and best thing to do is gonna be to use like dish soap I use blue dawn or you can use baby shampoo. Do not use power wash or any other kind of detergents. When you wash the kittens, you always start at the head first and then go down and once they're done with their bath, you wanna make sure that you dry them very quickly because they can chill. I find a lot of people are too quick to give a bath sometimes. I don't like washing the little tiny babies. It's not worth risking chilling them when they can't regulate their temperature. I think we covered most everything. So now we're up to the point where they're gonna be weaned. So once they are fully weaned and you notice that they're drinking water and they're not wanting a bottle anymore, they're eating out the dish pretty good. At that point, what I will do is I'll at offer 'em a canned food. So I use canned kitten formula. Make sure that they're eating everything. Usually they'll go right for it. The other thing that you can do is offer them a dry formula. When first introducing them to like a dry food, I will moisten it a little bit another thing I'm gonna show you is this setup here. So most rescues have these. It's a just a little popup thing. This one is a smaller one. I'll keep my kittens up to four kittens will fit in this until they're about four weeks old. I do let 'em out for exercise to play. And then what I'll do is I'll eventually move them out to one of these. I could put a litter box in here. There's enough room in there for some food and water. There are bigger ones. Most rescues are gonna have those. They're portable, they pop up. I'll line it with some pee pads, put a litter box in there, and when I put the litter box in there another thing, kittens like to try to eat litter. Anything they can put in their mouth. They put in their mouth. So once my kittens start going in the box, so at three weeks I'll just put a newspaper in there, say by four weeks I'll start adding litter in there. I'll use either non clumping clay litter, or I'll use one of those wood pellet litters like Catalyst Natural Litter I don't use anything clumping because if they eat it, it can clump in their belly and cause 'em some problems. So I won't offer them any kind of like clumping litter and usually until they're about like seven weeks old. And you can put 'em in this comfortably. So as far as leaving food and water, so if you work, your kittens should be fine. You feed 'em in the morning before you go to work. If they're like five weeks old leave some dry food out for them so they can eat it all day long and a bowl of water. And then they should be fine till you come home. They're good to go. They all should be drinking water. They should be self-sufficient. Now I say self-sufficient, but you still have to monitor 'em. Any kind of signs where you see that they're acting off, it's gonna be a concern. It doesn't matter how old a kitten is, they can go downhill very fast if they get sick. So it's better to just be proactive about it. If you think something's wrong, you can call and ask somebody. It could be nothing, but it also could be something so it's not worth risking it 'cause they do go downhill very quickly. at Four weeks it's usually a pound. Of course, this is like a generalization. Usually it's gonna be a pound a month. I. So we say eight weeks are gonna be two pounds their time to go get spayed neutered. Of course it's gonna be a per kitten basis. You're gonna have some that are gonna be a little bit chunkier than others, and you're gonna have some that aren't as big as others, and they're just gonna be on a smaller side. So it's just a per litter, a per kitten basis. So things that you wanna do. So if you find them, and most rescues too would be willing to help you if you do find a kitten. If you're not working with a rescue or taking kittens from a rescue your kittens need to be dewormed. You can deworm 'em as early as four weeks. That's a must.. They all have worms. Again, that's something either the rescue work you're working with or your vet can walk you through with that. The vaccines some rescues are gonna do it as a early as four weeks. I know other vets are gonna recommend six. My vet is more on the the scale of doing it at six weeks. Again, it's gonna depend, but that's gonna be something that they're gonna need as well. So you're gonna wanna get 'em vaccinated and the deworming is a must. And then of course the definite is gonna be spay neuter. And when you get 'em done early, they don't know anything has been done. So I like getting them in when they're two pounds. If you're doing bottle babies, just remember sometimes they're in a in a bad place, people pick 'em up. That's how we get 'em. Other times, the moms abandon them for a reason. So don't beat yourself up over it. If you take them, you're giving them a chance that they didn't have. Sometimes they don't make it You're giving them love. So that is something that they would not have had the opportunity to get if you did not step up and help 'em. So don't beat yourself up over it. Don't say I did something wrong 'cause you didn't do anything wrong. If anything you stepped up to help 'em. Do you keep separate from your cats? You wanna keep 'em separated for a isolation, quarantine. 'Cause when you come in, you don't know if they could have something. If you keep 'em isolated for the first couple of weeks? You should be okay. As long as you're washing your hands. They're not in direct contact with other cats I have cats Most rescue people have cats and we actually don't even think about it, I have my separate little kitten room that I keep 'em in. Once they're vaccinated, I'll be like, Hey, look at the other cats. Come introduce 'em to the other cats. But I don't stress out about it. If this is gonna be the first time you're bringing kittens in, you wanna take it slow with your cat anyway 'cause your cat might get a little POed. I did not touch on this and this is an important thing to know. So if you have a bottle kitten, and it's a single kitten, you really wanna put that kitten with another kitten by the time it reaches five weeks old, because otherwise it's not learning proper kitten behavior from another kitten. They learn how to bite and they learn what is too much by playing with another kitten. So a lot of the times when you have kittens that have a behavioral issue, it's gonna be a single kitten that was raised by itself. You wanna have it with another kitten up until it's about, seven, eight weeks old, ready for adoption. Because otherwise you're gonna have a little biter on your hand. If you do have a singleton, put a stuffed animal in there with them, but it is best to get them a friend because you want 'em to learn how to bite another kitten and not you. Now if they do start biting you, usually you can do a quick ow you exaggerate it, make it very loud, and sometimes it helps them, but not always. So it's always best to have 'em raised together with another kitten. If you would like to support more life-saving work like this, every single dollar helps our animals directly. You can find a link to donate in our show notes. Thanks for listening. And that's all the time we have for today's episode. If you are in animal rescue or if you know someone that has a story that should be told, please contact us. We would love to have you or them on the show. Thanks for listening, and please join us next week as we continue to explore the world of animal rescue.