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Do runts usually live to adulthood?
We have twelve kittens in all, two mothers, and one of the mother (Owl) has smaller kittens than Dotty's. Owl always has kittens who are noticeably smaller and sometimes less active than Dotty's, however, have never had complications. They've all grown to be healthy and normal, but there is one noticeable runt. They're about four weeks old but this one seems to have barely grown past 2 weeks. She drinks milk still while the other kittens all eat mushy food, occasionally drinking from the mothers still, but Bike (the runt) only drinks milk. I've tried rubbing food on her mouth because that's how the other kittens learned to eat. But she shows no interest in the food. She also sleeps A LOT, and NEVER plays with the other kittens. She never meows, but she always stares at things and looks like she's observing. Her fur has also always been very messed up, as if someone's been rubbing her a lot. But she's been this way since she was born. I keep them all in a large pen in my room so they don't get lost or anything. My mom came in to check on them and she immediately noticed Bike, saying she looked malournished and felt weak. She's definitely a runt, and she's made it this far but I'm worried she won't make it to adulthood.
2 Answers
- Anonymous9 months ago
you need to intervene she could and you need to encourage more feeding so give her milk, like kitten formula a lot more regularly, have you tried calling a vet for advice maybe she hasn't been able to get as much milk because her siblings are bigger than her, also if her fur is a concern you should take her to the vet for a check up as skin problems in a cat can cause weight loss or in bikes case prevent weight gain, you need to start hand rearing her as she is not getting enough from her mum get some kitten formula off of amazon and give it to her regularly try royal canin they send you a bottle for it too, if she isn't putting on weight and she is malnourished she will die, you also need to encourage her to eat try mixing some of the kitten formula with kitten food and then giving it to her first in a bottle (so make it quite a thin texture at first and then start to increase the amount of kitten food to kitten milk formula) which has a higher calorie intake so that she will start putting on weight, this hopefully won't cost you too much but no amount of money is worth a life. Please intervene, if you don't she will die. If you don't have kitten milk at the moment you can temporarily use the milk in your fridge just warm it up not hot just mildly warm and try and give to her preferably in a little syringe but if at worst put in a bowl but she may be reluctant though.